Bloody Nose
by GimmeBanjo
Summary: “I’ve seen your face before / Though I didn’t recognize / Till you walked out the door / And I’ve seen that face before / Now I’ll always wonder why / Don’t know me anymore.” –sometimes you can’t escape who you really are.
1. Author's Note

Title: Bloody Nose

Summary: "I've seen your face before, / Though I didn't recognize / Till you walked out the door. / And I've seen that face before, / Now I'll always wonder why, Don't know me anymore." –sometimes you can't escape who you really are.

Disclaimer: I only claim Charlotte. The rest are too far above for my little brain to comprehend. The Avett Brothers are responsible for the music/chapter titles. Head over to their myspace and check them out, cause they are super.

Please read and review! This is my first fic and as lame as this sounds, I really need some encouragement! If you like it, let me know cause I have tons of story ideas for later fics. Thanks so much! ~Banjo

* * *

_Tell me a lie, tell me a story.  
Tell me anything, don't you worry.__  
Tell me about the booze and the Bowery,  
And all about the drugs in the morning._

_I've seen your face before,  
Though I didn't recognize  
Till you walked out the door.  
And I've seen that face before,  
Now I'll always wonder why,  
Don't know me anymore._

_We'll take the car down the highways,  
We won't get fooled by the bad days.  
And all the money we took from the last one,  
Clean your bloody nose in the bathroom._

_I've seen your face before,  
Though I didn't recognize  
Till you walked out the door.  
And I've seen that face before,  
Now I'll always wonder why,  
Don't know me anymore._

This story had multiple points of inspiration. The main song that inspired me was Earlimart's "Bloody Nose" but as I was writing, I found songs by The Avett Brothers that really epitomized what I felt I was writing about. Each chapter took on the name of one of the songs and that's how I organized my thoughts.

I was sitting in my behavior modification class on the first day of the new semester when all the sudden we hear from the back of the classroom, "If you don't have a pen in your hand right now, you might as well slit your throat." My professor came bursting in from the back and waltzed down to the front and looked at us over his glasses "I'm serious."

I felt like we were being weeded out by Dr. House as the semester went on. A class that started with 50 people ended with only 26. We didn't have first names, just last names and they were shouted across the classroom as he called us out for being idiots. We select few were blessed to make it through the rigors of his impossible tests and were rewarded with endless amounts of knowledge. Well, his interpretation on knowledge. (There is actually a direct quote from my professor in "Find My Love")

So one night I'm studying (or not, as the case may be) for one of his tests and I was listening to music and I heard "Bloody Nose" and something just clicked. My professor was House… We were his team… Wow… this song is really cool…

And the idea just popped into my head and I ran with it. It's not perfect. I'm still trying to figure out who Charlotte is and I think I'm just going to keep writing until I hammer it out. So that being said, I really hope you enjoy "Bloody Nose"


	2. Tales of Coming News

**Tales of Coming News**

_I'm so tired of hearing tales of coming news  
Tellin' tales of a changing sky  
Just a shame that I didn't notice you  
Till someone I loved had to die_

_You never used to let me go unfeigned  
I was so distracted I never saw the rain  
You promise you meant every word you said  
I wonder when did all that change_

_I sent a message, said I'd be gone forever  
A letter of reply never came  
She said that she'd be true but I wouldn't let her  
I wonder when did all that change  
_

"Ok Jared, let's read this book, then we'll go get a soda." Dr. Carrington handed the little boy sinking into the couch a book. "If You Give a Mouse A Cookie." She smiled, "You like cookies, don't you, Jared?"

The little boy nodded his red head.

"Let's sit down at the table." She pointed at the desk across the room. She started to get off the couch when the boy started crying. She continued across the room and sat at the table and stared at him mutely. He threw himself back and cried uncontrollably

Dr. Carrington was silent as the boy started pounding his fists into the couch. As she began to rise to leave the room, he started shaking.

"Jared." Dr. Carrington stopped, noticing he was no longer crying. "Jared?" The boy continued to seize. "John!" Dr. Carrington ran to the two-way window. "Call 911!"

*

Standing in the doorway to House's office, Dr. Cuddy stood with arms crossed waiting for him to notice her. Slowly, he looked up and opened his mouth to speak. Cuddy wouldn't let him. "You have a case."

"A what?" He cocked his head to one side

"8 year old boy with Asperger's and selective mutism presenting with nose bleeds and frequent absent seizures." She walked forward and threw a folder on his desk. "And don't say you're not interested. He's spent the last week at Children's National Medical Center in D.C."

"You had me at selective mutism." He grabbed the file and opened to the first page

"His parents are British diplomats on assignment in Bahrain. They want answers now." She crossed to sit in the chair across from him

"Since when do we bow down to British spies?" His eyes locked with hers over the file

"Because they're on assignment, they're virtually unreachable. His legal guardian and medical POA is his behavioral therapist at The Children's Institute." She paused, "House, I think you should know,"

"I know." He cut her off "I can read. Don't try and talk me out of it. It's not that interesting of a case… but selective mutism! It fascinates me!"

"You can't possibly understand someone who can't talk?" Walking in the door, Dr. Foreman introduced himself into the conversation

"Ah, he CAN talk, he just DOESN'T talk." He grabbed his cane and stood up. "What kind of behavioral therapist does he have if she can't get him to talk?"

"House…" Cuddy warned

"I've been by to see him." Foreman continued from Cuddy's cue. "He talks to his therapist and his nurses. She's been working with him to be comfortable talking with everyone else."

"Well then, gather the team. Maybe he'll talk to one of you." House hobbled into the other room as Cuddy followed him. "And you can call the British government and tell them I will have him fixed and talking in no time."

"House." She stopped and crossed her arms "Don't do this."

"First you tell me I have to take the case, now you tell me not to?" He rolled his eyes. "Women."

"You know what I mean." She started to walk out of the room, then stopped abruptly. "Dr. Charlotte Carrington is the best behavioral therapist at The Children's Institute. You do your job and she'll do hers. Never the twains shall meet."

Leaving him standing there staring blankly, she whipped around and waltzed out.

*

Dr. Charlotte Carrington sat beside the little boy's hospital bed singing softly as she held his hand.

"Go to sleep my little hobo, let the towns drift slowly by, tonight you've got a nice warm boxcar, that's the hobo's lullaby…" Thinking he was asleep, she slowly put her head down against the edge of the bed and closed her eyes.

"I don't want to sleep." Jared whispered.

"Jared," Charlotte looked up at him, her bright blue eyes capturing his round brown ones. "The sooner you fall asleep, you know what happens?" He shook his head "The sooner it's tomorrow. And tomorrow is another day closer to your parents coming home." The boy smiled and settled into the pillow.

Thirteen slid open the glass door and looked at the picture. A little red headed boy, small for his age, was dwarfed inside the hospital bed. Beside him sat an angel. Long, loose blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She looked old enough to be his mother, but too young to be considered one. She wore jeans and sneakers, but was wearing a neatly pressed cardigan and had her designer briefcase sitting beside her big, sloppy purse.

"Dr. Carrington?" Thirteen cut off her own reverie. Charlotte looked up and placed a finger on her lips. Slowly, she reached for her briefcase and stood up, leaning over and whispering something in Jared's ear.

She motioned for Thirteen to follow her out of the room, glancing over her shoulder to give Jared a reassuring smile.

Once outside, Thirteen started, "I'm Dr. Hadley. I work with Dr. House. I need to get as detailed of a history as I can get."

"I figured." Charlotte reached into her briefcase and pulled out a file folder "You already have his records from Children's National, these are from his stay at the Institute. He never had more than a sniffle in the 18 months he was with us." She pulled out another large folder, this one being held together by a rubber band. "And these are my personal notes. Detailed therapy plans, all my pre-evaluations including baseline testing, and daily accounts of our sessions."

"Wow. Um," Thirteen grabbed the second file and almost buckled under the weight.

"It doesn't look organized, but trust me, it is. Everything has dates and times and it's all in chronological order." Charlotte smiled. "That's all I have."

"You don't happen to have any medical information on his parents?" She looked hopeful

"It's in the intake report." Charlotte pointed at the first folder.

"Alright then, I'll get started on these. If you happen to think of anything that is not in these reports, please don't hesitate to stop by and let us know." Thirteen looked at the boy through the glass "We will find out what's wrong with him."

"I know you will. Dr. House has a knack for taking impossible cases and making them seem stupidly simple." Charlotte smiled her reassuring smile at Thirteen

"It's like you know the guy." Thirteen laughed then sobered up quickly. "I better get going. Lots of paperwork to catch up on."

*

"Well, I liked Dr. Carrington." Thirteen walked back into the office, carrying the armload of files.

"You would." Kutner snipped from his position at the table

"I did some research on her," Foreman injected "You know she's only 25? She's apparently a genius. She got her PhD in Social Intervention at NYU and worked in rehab facilities for a few years before switching to children's therapy."

"She belongs with children. She's so soothing. She smiles at you and it's as if your confidence goes through the roof…" Thirteen marveled.

"Yeah, yeah, a regular Mother Theresa." House came bursting through the door from his office. "So what about the kid."

"Mother Theresa takes good notes." Taub flipped through Charlotte's personal notes. "10:13am on August 23rd. Jared walked into my office with his arms hanging down to the side… The nurses informed me they allowed him to dress himself. He was wearing a black t-shirt with his jean shorts. He wasn't wearing shoes… He was unresponsive to the usual greeting... He sat in the corner of the couch farthest from the window…" He scanned over that day's notes.

"…He mentioned he caught some rare infectious disease?" House quipped as he walked over to get coffee. "So what do we know?"

"8 years old. Asperger's Syndrome. Selective mutism. Nose bleeds. Seizures." Foreman shrugged

"Parents are British diplomats." Kutner continued

"Or spies." House added, "Most likely whatever is wrong with him, we can blame the parents. It's always the parent's fault. So what about them."

"There isn't much known. What we do know is in the intake reports for The Children's Institute and since they aren't a medical facility, it's not very thorough." Thirteen opened up the intake file

"So what is there?" House asked, getting frustrated

"He was born in London. At 6 months, they moved to Lithuania. 14 months, Fiji. Age 2, they moved to Chile. Age 3, Stockholm. Age 5, Niger then Lebanon. Age 6, back to London. Age 7 he was in The Institute." She read off

"So he's moved around a lot. Maybe he contracted TB or Burkitt's lymphoma." Taub suggested

"Burkitt's is unlikely. He'd have to have a viral infection and malaria. Maybe a worm?" Kutner grabbed the intake file

"Have you forgotten the symptoms?" House grabbed a marker and wrote up "NOSE BLEEDS" and "SEIZURES" then turned to them "Fever?"

"Low grade." Thirteen nodded, looking at the charts. He turned back around to write it up. Sharply, he turned back around, walked into his office, grabbed his backpack and continued talking. "Do a full blood panel. It's probably some tropical disease from living in all those unclean places growing up." He shuttered.

"They did blood panels at Children's National…" Thirteen tried to stop him

"Well, do them again. Do you think just because they're catering to kids of politicians that they're perfect?" He started out the door

"Where are you going?" Foreman started to chase him down

"I have to see a man about a horse." And with that, he was gone.

*

"Charlotte?" Cuddy crept into Jared's room. Charlotte, who had been pouring over notes, looked up. Cuddy searched her face. Her normally bright blue eyes were tired. Her hair was thrown into a messy pony tail, tied up with a piece of latex normally used as tourniquets for injections. Desperately Cuddy tried to find the little girl she once knew, but only saw an exhausted psychologist.

"Lisa. It's good to see you." Putting down her papers, she stood up and embraced the other woman. "They've been doing tests on Jared for days and no one has said anything."

"Charlotte," Cuddy looked at the sleeping boy "House sent me to tell you they found an infection in his spleen. Spherocytosis"

"An infection in his spleen is causing seizures? Lisa, I find that really hard to believe." Charlotte crossed her arms challenging the diagnosis.

"They believe it's a rare tropical disease, but they aren't sure which one. They're narrowing it down, but in the mean time, if they don't remove his spleen, it's just going to get worse." Cuddy took Charlotte by the arm and led her to the corner of the room. "I assigned Dr. Robert Chase to do the surgery. He's good, Charlotte, don't worry."

"Of course I'm worried!" She shouted, then winced when Jared moved slightly. Quietly, she continued, "He is an 8 year old boy. I know spleens aren't the most vital of vital organs, but removing it?"

"He has Spherocytosis. House said it was the best thing to do." Charlotte looked at her skeptically so she added, "And I agree. I'm sending Dr. Chase in a little later to talk to Jared about the surgery." She squeezed Charlotte's hand. "We're going to make him better."

"I didn't sign up for this," Charlotte laughed "I have degrees in cognitive studies and social intervention… not taking care of someone else's son."

"You're doing a good thing." Cuddy smiled and gave her hand another quick squeeze before leaving the room.

"Dr. Charlotte?" a little voice squeaked from the other side of the room

"Jared, you're awake." She rushed over to his bed

"What's a spleen?" He whispered, his brown eyes big, wide and completely trusting.

"Actually Jared," Another voice said from the doorway, "You have Spherocytosis." The man started walking towards the bed and Jared stiffened up immediately. "Do you like doughnuts, Jared?" Jared nodded, "Well, blood cells are shaped like jelly-filled doughnuts, but yours are shaped like baseballs and they're going through your spleen to get cleaned and they are getting caught in there," he pointed at Jared's stomach "Right here. So we're going to take out your spleen and get you better."

"Dr. Chase I presume?" Charlotte looked at him with a small smirk

"Yes, sorry." He reached across the bed and shook her hand. "And you must be Dr. Carrington, the genius behavioral therapist."

"Charlotte. I'm not a doctor today. Just a concerned legal guardian." She looked down at Jared. "Do you have any questions for Dr. Chase?"

Jared waved his hand, motioning Charlotte closer. He whispered something which made her laugh. She looked up at Chase with wide, sparkling eyes.

"He likes your accent. Where are you from?" She laughed

"Well Jared, I'm from Australia. I've heard you're quite the traveler yourself. Have you ever been there?" Chase grabbed the stool and rolled it next to the bed.

Jared tried to wave Charlotte close again, but she shook her head.

"You know the deal, Jared. I ask the first question, you do the second. If you can't ask him a question, then Dr. Chase and I will go outside and talk until you're ready to talk." Charlotte sat back down in her seat, sure in her method. After a minute, Jared opened his mouth.

"Fiji." He said softly.

"Fiji!" Chase smiled "That's better than Australia!" Jared responded by smiling back and reaching his hand out and touching Chase's arm.

"Tan." Jared stroked his arm softly, then immediately pulled his hand away. "Sorry."

"No, that's alright. I just got back from visiting from Australia. I spent a lot of time in the sun." Chase smiled again but Jared turned away. Confused, he turned and looked at Charlotte, who was leaning down reassuring Jared that he did a good job. When she finished, she looked up at him.

"Dr. Chase, can we talk out in the hall?" She stood up and Jared grabbed for her hand, but she slid out of his grasp and followed Chase out. "Thank you, Dr. Chase." She said once they got out into the hall. "He refuses to talk to anyone, so that was kind of a big deal in there."

"I thought you said you weren't a therapist today." He smirked "That was strangely a lot like therapy."

"I am what I am." She shrugged. "Dr. Chase, answer me honestly: do you think he has Spherocytosis?"

"He has a low hemoglobin count, he's slightly anemic, it all fits. It would even explain the nose bleeds." Chase thumbed through Jared's charts

"But the seizures. It doesn't explain those, does it?" She crossed her arms and stared him straight in the eyes.

"No, I guess it doesn't. I didn't know psychologists got such intensive medical training." He laughed

"No," She shrugged "But my dad was a doctor. Something must have sunk in."

"Look, his spleen isn't working and it needs to be removed. Maybe after we get rid of the symptoms of Spherocytosis we'll be able to figure out what is causing the seizures." He said apologetically

"Won't it just make him weaker?" She asked meekly

"Dr. Carrington, we can control the pain and we'll monitor him closely. It's all we can do for now." He looked at her softly "If you want, go talk to Dr. House. His office is-" She turned around and started running down the hall and pushed the button for the elevator. "Wait," Chase ran after her "Where are you going?"

"I have to tell him he's wrong." She said as the doors opened. Chase slipped in after her

"What?" He looked at her with disbelief

"He's wrong. He can't diagnose an 8 year old boy with a disease, that yeah, sure, it fits, but not completely." She shook her head. At that moment, the elevator opened and she tore down the hall with Chase on her heels.

"You're wrong." She burst into House's office. His team froze in the spot, eyes glued to the intruder.

"No…" House started slowly

"Ok, you're right, but you're wrong." She took a few steps closer

"You can't be right and wrong at the same time." He cocked his head to the side "Damn logic."

"He may very well have Spherocytosis. I'm not saying the diagnosis is wrong, but you're conveniently forgetting symptoms to make a diagnosis fit!" She walked over to the table and looked at House's team then turned around "Since when did you get lazy?"

House looked around at his team in disbelief. "It took a psychologist to figure it out?"

"Figure what out?" Taub looked at House then at Charlotte

"That I'm lazy!" House limped over to the board.

"Hey, if the behavior fits." Charlotte crossed her arms and looked at the table. "Have you even read my notes?"

"They've been busy reading blood tests and whatnot," He looked at Kutner "Except him. He's been busy reading the patient's horoscope." He leaned in, "The moon is in Sagittarius, not looking good for finances."

"Look, Dr. House," Charlotte spat out, "I am medically responsible for a little 8 year old boy and I will not having you remove his spleen if his problem isn't with his spleen."

"Who said the problem isn't his spleen?" House squared himself to look directly at Charlotte

"It doesn't fit." Charlotte insisted

"It partially fits," Dr. Chase suggested, "What if there is a problem with his blood, but not necessarily his spleen."

"Bruising." Thirteen spoke up. She was holding Charlotte's notes in her hands "September 2nd you reported he was grabbing his left arm and leaving dark bruises." House stood up straight and looked interested

"Leukemia." Foreman sat forward in his chair. "Acute myelogenous leukemia. It would explain the blood count, the weakness, nose bleeds…"

"Seizures?" Charlotte looked at House

"Present themselves in late stages of leukemia." He said softly

"So he's dying." She took a step back and looked at Dr. Chase. "You can't save him."

"You wanted an answer. You got one." House started into his office

"I'll start running more blood." Foreman stood up and started out the door

"I'll contact Wilson for a consult." Kutner made a hasty exit, quickly followed by Thirteen and Taub.

"Charlotte," Chase said softly "I'm sorry." Then he quickly left as well.

Charlotte looked across the room into House's office where he was seated with his back turned to the door.

"Do you really think it's leukemia?" She asked as she crossed into his office

"I have been wrong before." He said without turning around

"Leukemia is so…" She searched for the right word. "Pedestrian. I refuse to believe your team didn't see it right off the bat."

"Have you ever noticed anyone driving slower than you is an idiot and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?" He kept his back to her, but she could see him twirling his cane

"You knew it was leukemia from when you first looked at his file." She shook her head "So why didn't you get your team to treat that first? Why did you wait three weeks and threaten a splenectomy when you could have been treating leukemia from day one!"

"I knew you wouldn't fall for the splenectomy." He laughed to himself. "He hasn't gotten worse in the last three weeks. If he was getting worse, my team would have spotted it." He still didn't turn around

"He wouldn't have been in pain!" Charlotte cried

"He would have been in pain from the treatment, in fact, he'd have been in more pain." House said coldly, "I did him a favor."

"Why did you do nothing for three weeks?" She asked again

"Because I didn't want you to have the responsibility of telling a little boy he was dying." House turned around and slammed his cane on the desk, causing Charlotte to jump. "If I could hold off long enough, his parents would come and you'd be free from your duties as POA. That boy is not your responsibility!"

"Yes, he is." Her eyes narrowed "He doesn't have anyone. I'm all he has. I'm who he trusts."

"Since when did someone needing you become the requirement for being responsible for that person?" House looked at her, his expression unreadable.

"I guess it never was." She shook her head and turned to walk out of the room.

*

Charlotte was standing at the nurse's station when Cuddy found her.

"You will not believe that all of my doctors are actually hanging out in the clinic. Willingly." Cuddy started, noticing Charlotte's glazed over expression. "However, they're too busy gossiping about how Dr. Carrington stood up to House to get any work done." Still no response. "Good news is he won't have to have his spleen removed." She offered weakly.

"Bad news is he's dying." Charlotte said in monotone.

"Not necessarily. We can get him healthy enough for a bone marrow transplant." Cuddy suggested.

"House said he was dying. Oddly, I trust him. Seizures only present themselves in the late stages of the cancer." She shook her head "If only I noticed the signs. If I hadn't been so involved in his behaviors. If I had noticed the boy underneath the disorders…"

"Charlotte, you can't do that to yourself." Cuddy put her hand on Charlotte's shoulder.

"I know." She looked at Cuddy and for the first time Cuddy saw that she had tears in her eyes. "When I get back to D.C. I'm handing in my letter of resignation. I have some friends who want to do a study on Community Rehab. They've gotten government funding and asked me to join them." She sighed, "Telling addicts that they're dying because they were stupid seems to be a lot easier right now than telling an innocent boy that he's dying for no fault of his own."

"Maybe you won't have to." Cuddy nodded to the elevator. Jared's parents were standing in front of closing doors, looking around. "I recognize the red hair." Beside her, Charlotte took in a deep breath. "You won't have to say anything, just be there to offer your support when they hear the news."

"Lisa, thank you." For the first time, Lisa saw the little girl she once knew. "Thank you for keeping my secret and thank you for doing what I can't do."

"That's what friends do, Charlotte. I'm not going to leave you standing here to face an uncertain future alone." Cuddy grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly. "Let's go bring them up to date."

*

There was a knock on Cuddy's office door and Charlotte peaked her head in.

"You wanted to see me?" Cuddy motioned for her to come in.

"You have your bags with you." She looked down at the suitcase in Charlotte's hand.

"I came by to see Jared before my flight leaves. His parents chose to go through with the treatment, even though the prognosis isn't the best…" Charlotte sighed. "But he's young and willing to fight, so he has that on his side."

"That and he's surrounded by people that love him." Cuddy stood up and walked around to the front of her desk and leaned on it. "I don't think you should leave just yet."

"I need to." Charlotte smiled. "I talked to my friends doing the Community Rehab research. If I want to join in on it, I need to be there by the end of this week. They're facing the Internal Review Board to get the go ahead."

"That's great!" Cuddy exclaimed. "Where will you be practicing?"

"Where ever I can find a rehab clinic willing to try a new program." She shrugged "I have sent a few emails and gotten back a few names."

"What about here? This is a teaching hospital." Cuddy asked slowly. Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but abruptly closed it. Cuddy laughed as Charlotte pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows. "You always looked more like your father than your mother."

"Lisa," Charlotte sat down on the nearest chair "I don't think I can do that. Especially with Jared still here. So much of my past is here and I've been working really hard to avoid it."

"You won't have to work to avoid it. It'll be nice and natural to avoid things here. It's what we do, if you haven't noticed." Cuddy laughed again "Rehab is nowhere near the hospital. You can take the elevator on up and never leave. Plus, the director is leaving at the end of this month and I really think our program needs to be overhauled."

"And government funded?" Charlotte raised an eyebrow

"Yes, that would help…" Cuddy moved to the chair next to Charlotte. "Look, new programs like Community Rehab are just what we need to stay on top. If you come here, I can offer you a hefty raise, wonderful benefits and all the avoidance technique training you could ever use."

"Tempting." Charlotte sat back and studied Cuddy. "Why?"

"You graduated top of your class at Michigan, Oxford and NYU. You're smart, Charlotte. You're good at what you do. You have enough of your father in you to make you ruthless and enough of your mother to make you passionate. You, in my opinion, have the energy and the tenacity to make a difference and our rehab program has been suffering."

"Ok." She said simply and stood up. "Where do I sign?"

"That's it?" Cuddy looked at her in disbelief. "That's all it took?"

"When I was three, my dad called me tenacious. It took me most of the day, but I looked it up in the dictionary. I liked what it meant and I like what it said about me. Working in children's therapy, I forgot what that word meant." She shrugged "I want to like it again."

"I didn't think you said yes, so I don't have any paperwork ready." Cuddy walked around behind her desk again, looking through papers to try and find what she wanted.

"Well, I guess I'll just tell the IRB I'm tentatively scheduled to do my research at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital." She reached out her hand for Cuddy to shake. Instead, Cuddy walked around the desk and clutched Charlotte close.

"Damn it, I missed you." She whispered softly as tears began to fall down Charlotte's cheek.


	3. Salvation Song

**Salvation Song**

_We came for salvation  
We came for family  
We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away_

_We came to break the bad  
We came to cheer the sad  
We came to leave behind the world a better way_

Dr. Robert Chase walked into the cafeteria and looked around. Across the room, he spotted someone who looked extremely familiar chatting on a cell phone and rapidly flicking her fingers in the air as she talked.

After he picked up his lunch, he approached the talker and stood and watched as she finished her conversation.

"Well, give him a big kiss for me." She smiled to herself "And don't forget to go by and grab my name plate from my office. I completely forgot it… No, I won't be using it, but I'd like to have it… Why are you trying to make this difficult?" She looked up and noticed Chase and smiled a dazzling smile. "I have to go. I'll see you soon… Love you too. Be good." She snapped her cell phone shut.

"Are you a psychologist today or someone else?" He smiled back at her

"A little bit of both." She laughed, "But you can still call me Charlotte." She motioned to the bench across from her "Please, sit down."

"I didn't mean to interrupt your phone call," He said as he slid into the seat

"No, it was time for it to end." Charlotte rolled her eyes "My mother never shuts up. She's watching my dog while I'm here and from all of her questions, you'd never be able to tell that she raised a child."

"What kind of dog?" Chase asked

"He's a mutt. A big love bug. His name is Pavlov." She smiled and opened her phone and showed it to Chase. Inside was a picture of a large, black dog seemed to be smiling back at him.

"That," Chase laughed "Is the goofiest looking dog I've ever seen."

"Aw," Charlotte pulled back her phone protectively "I guess I have a thing for floppy eared mutts who have blank looks and big, goofy grins."

"You're just a proud mum." Chase said sympathetically

"I guess I am." She laughed. "I'm a big fluff ball of pride."

"Could be worse," Chase pointed out "You could have that really cute dog and think he was a holy terror. Then I'd have to say you had a problem in connecting with your emotions."

"My gooshy "all babies are cute" center in my brain isn't working." She rolled her eyes, causing Chase to burst out laughing.

Across the room, House walked in with Wilson on his left. They heard the laughter across the cafeteria and Wilson immediately narrowed in on Chase and Charlotte

"Who is that with Chase?" He asked curiously

"Dr. Charlotte Carrington. The new head of the rehab clinic." House muttered as he went to get in line.

"Head?" Wilson followed House, but kept his gaze locked on Charlotte "She looks a little young to be in charge of rehab."

"She's doing research and Cuddy decided she wanted the government's money." House said shortly. "That money whore."

Back at the table, Chase noticed House casting a quick glance in their direction.

"You know, even though it was a month ago, people can't stop talking about how you actually told House he was wrong." Chase smirked and motioned over to the lurking House "I think he's scared of you."

"As well he should be." Charlotte smiled and ignored House "I'm not someone who is really easy to get along with. I'm usually right and even when I'm not, I'll argue my way into being right." She laughed "Mom always said I should have been a lawyer."

"But instead, you're not the head of the hospital's Rehab Services… a bit of a leap." Chase smiled

"How did you know? I thought Lisa was withholding that information until it was passed by the board." Charlotte looked nervous.

"I was visiting Jared the other day. His dad told me you quit your job at The Children's Institute. I went to Cuddy to find out if it was true and she told me." He shrugged "Is that a problem?"

"No, it's just…" she sighed, "I'm tired of making splashes. I just wanted to quietly transition into a new job and go by unnoticed."

"I don't think you have the ability to go by unnoticed." He smirked

"I'm turning over a new leaf." She shrugged "The new, quiet, unassuming me."

"Well new, quiet and unassuming Charlotte, I'm going to miss the old one. She was a legend around here." He leaned in and smiled at her

"Well, you can reassure the masses that Old Charlotte will be back in a few weeks." She leaned in and the left side of her mouth curled up "New Charlotte is going to get bored."

"Dr. Carrington!" A loud, gruff voice interrupted, sending Chase and Charlotte shooting back into upright positions. "This is Dr. James Wilson." House introduced "He's actually your little boy's new doctor."

"Dr. Wilson," Charlotte shook his hand "I hear that the Cullen's are extremely satisfied with Jared's treatment."

"He's a good boy." Wilson nodded "And I suppose I have you to thank for that."

"After 18 months with me, I guess something rubbed off." She smiled. "Will you two join us?" She scooted over in her seat and shot Chase a look of warning.

"So I hear you're the new head of Rehabilitation Services." Wilson looked at Charlotte after he slid in next to her

"That's funny, I heard that too." Charlotte looked at him blankly then broke into a giggle "It's actually supposed to be a secret."

"You have a lot of those." House muttered under his breath. Charlotte looked at him intensely, her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth positioned to snap back when Wilson commented,

"Dr. Green, the old head of Rehab Services, has recently retired. I think it'll be nice to get some new blood in there." He looked at Charlotte "Do you have any big plans?"

"Um, actually," Charlotte shifted her gaze from House back to Wilson "I'm doing a research study and I'd really like to completely redo the way this hospital's rehab is run. It's called Community Rehab. It's more client based than before. Less sitting around talking, more getting up and doing."

"That seems like an impressive challenge." Chase smiled

"It is." She nodded "But hopefully I'll get the ok from the board. I have a planning meeting with them next week, so I'm going to be staying here while I write my proposal." She looked briefly at House then smiled at Chase "So I might have to claim this booth as my temporary office and kick you all out."

At that moment, House's pager went off.

"Saved by the bell." He slid out of his seat and left the group without a goodbye.

"You have to forgive House. He doesn't like the idea of rehab." Wilson looked after his friend

"It's ok. Most addicts don't." Chase and Wilson looked her with surprise. "Classic signs." She explained. "The fact that he uses a cane and his demeanor are pretty much all you need. You can't tell me that anyone that mad at the world isn't using."

"You are good." Wilson laughed and threw his trash on his tray. "Well, I have patients to get to. I'll see you both later."

"Well, Dr. Chase, I suppose you have patients to get to as well." Charlotte shifted in her seat to look at him

"I do. But before I go, I was wondering if I could schedule an appointment to meet in your office tomorrow, say, around noon?" He smiled

"I think I could pencil you in. Although, noon is my lunch hour, so you're going to have to eat with me if you want an appointment." She smirked back

"I think I can manage." Chase slid out of the booth and stood up "Till tomorrow, then."

*

"Lisa, I have charts, graphs, handouts and personal testaments to the effectiveness of Community Rehab." Charlotte came rushing out of the elevator holding the materials for the meeting. Cuddy was standing in front of the conference room, laughing. "Do you think I need anything else?"

"Charlotte, you have a two million dollar research grant. You don't need much more than that to convince these guys." She smiled and took some of the handouts from Charlotte. "Go in there, remind them of the money, then tell them exactly what you're going to do with that money."

"They really want that money." Charlotte laughed. "I'm not naïve, but for some reason, I want to believe they hired me to actually help people."

"They hired you because you've made a name for yourself. You're famous in your field. They're going to listen to you because of your money." Cuddy looked at her sternly "Don't mess that up."

With that, Cuddy opened the door and Charlotte froze, staring at the sea of blank faces behind the table. With a little push from Cuddy, she walked forward with a big smile on her face.

"Good morning," She said, handing out the prepared packets of information. "My name is Dr. Charlotte Carrington and I'm going to change the way people recover from drug and alcohol abuse."

*

Chase and Foreman walked into the cafeteria discussing a case. Foreman looked around and noticed Charlotte sitting at her usual booth. He signaled to Chase and the two walked over. They stopped and Chase knocked on the table.

"May we come in?" He asked with a smile

"Yes!" She looked up with a huge smile plastered on her face "Come in! Sit down!"

"You know what I've noticed, Chase," Foreman looked at Charlotte "Dr. Carrington always has a big smile on her face. Even when she's mad."

"I wonder if it's a defense mechanism…" Chase winked at her

"Not today. It's legit." She wiggled in her seat a little, trying to contain her excitement. "I just heard that my plan was given the green light by the board."

"We heard! Congratulations!" Foreman seemed genuinely excited "We also heard that you managed to convince the board to shut down rehab for a few months while you redecorate."

"It's not redecorating. I'm using my grant to gut it. I'm switching the layout, building new rooms and offices. I'm going to be adding a common room with a kitchen. Staff and clients are going to be living together." She jumped a little in her seat "I'm so excited."

"You dream big, don't you." Chase laughed

"She's not just dreaming big, but she's got the board eating out the palm of her hand." Foreman narrowed his eyes at her. "What's your secret?"

"When I first started, my name was hyphenated. My mom's name, then my dad's. I had a professor at NYU tell me that my mom's name would make people respect me and my dad's name would make people fear me. I had to decide who I wanted to be and at the time, I chose my mom's name because I thought it was more important to be respected." She laughed "But for that hour in the conference room, it was like my dad's name was being flashed in bright lights above my head. Fear can be a good thing."

"What's your dad's last name? Kevorkian?" Foreman asked

"Close." She laughed

"Fear and two million dollars." Chase pointed out. "If they don't do what you want, you're free to walk away and find somewhere that will. They stand to lose a big name and big bucks."

"Stop, you're giving me an ego." Charlotte blushed as her phone started ringing. She looked at it briefly before excusing herself.

When she was around the corner, Cameron walked into the cafeteria and came over to the booth and slid in across from Chase and Foreman.

"Did you hear Dr. Carrington got the board to ok her plan?" She asked once she sat down

"Yeah, we were just talking to her about it." Foreman looked at her curiously "What's wrong?"

"I just got news that the Department of Social Services is coming to investigate our paper work in the ER." She said grumpily

"That's not that big of a surprise, it's been about a year since they were here last." Chase shrugged

"It's not New Jersey, it's D.C. They're giving us two million dollars for Dr. Carrington's research, so they're checking us out." She leaned in a whispered "But you know what's weird about it? They're sending Dr. Carrington's mom. She's apparently some big shot in social services."

"Her mom?" Foreman looked shocked "Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

"There's something strange about Dr. Carrington." Cameron insisted. "She is too young to have so many friends in high places. She calls Cuddy "Lisa". It's weird."

"Her hiring did happen fairly quick…" Foreman nodded

"Did it ever occur to you that she's equally qualified and charismatic?" Chase asked

"No one is that qualified or charismatic. It's all happening too fast and everyone seems to be under her spell." She looked at Chase "Including you."

"I happen to enjoy her energy. It's infectious." He defended, "And we broke up, so I can eat lunch with whoever I like."

"I don't care who you're eating lunch with, but I still think she's trying too hard to cover something up." She shrugged "I like her too. And I like her plan for the rehab facility. But I can't shake the fact that she's hiding something from us."

"Then ask her." Foreman motioned up behind Cameron where Charlotte was standing.

"Ask me what?" Charlotte looked at Cameron with wide eyes.

"How do you know Cuddy?" She exploded. Charlotte laughed and Cameron slid over so she could sit on the bench.

"Believe it or not, she used to be my babysitter back when we lived in Michigan. My mother and I moved to California, but we still kept in touch with Lisa." She explained "I used to actually call her Aunt Lisa, but when I was about ten, she told me just to call her Lisa because Aunt Lisa made her feel old."

"So she used to be your babysitter." Cameron looked at her skeptically.

"Yeah." Charlotte shrugged "I hadn't seen her in about ten years when Jared got sick and they couldn't find out what was wrong with him, I called her in a panic and she told me to bring him here and everything just kind of fell into place…" She laughed "Not what I intended, believe me."

"Dr. Cameron also heard that your mom is coming to investigate the ER." Foreman stated

"Yeah, actually, she just called." Charlotte looked at her phone "She's also investigating the clinic's paperwork. She'll be here for about a week while she checks everything."

"It isn't for the grant?" Chase asked

"What? The grant?" Charlotte looked shocked. "No, that paperwork has already been done." She blushed a little "She actually filed for time off to come help me with house hunting, but when her boss found out where she was going, he asked her to check in on the hospital. Apparently the paperwork coming back from New Jersey has been incomplete for the last few years." She shrugged "Something about uncooperative doctors."

"Oh." Cameron looked relieved "Well, I'm sorry."

"About what?" Charlotte looked confused.

"I thought you were hiding something… everything that has happened just seemed a little strange." Cameron explained

"Oh, yeah, I can see that." She nodded "But it's all on the up and up. I don't have the mob holding the Internal Review Board hostage. They aren't breaking anyone's fingers, I promise."

"Good to know." Cameron smiled slightly.

*

Sarah Carrington stepped out of the cab and sighed as she took in the expansive building in front of her.

"Been a long time, huh?" Charlotte laughed, coming down the walkway towards her mother.

"Not long enough." She embraced her daughter. "But too long since I've seen you."

"Mom, it's only been a month." Charlotte shrugged her off and went to the back to get her mother's luggage. "Lisa wanted me to bring you in to see her. The ER has moved most of the paperwork that you need into a back office at the clinic. You'll be holed up there for a few days."

"Working in a clinic again." She sighed, "I'm getting too old for this."

"Shut up." Charlotte looked at her mom and laughed

The pair started walking towards the entrance when Lisa came out.

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't wait." She ran up and hugged Sarah. "I couldn't do that in there."

"Understandable." Sarah nodded, giving Cuddy the once-over "God, Lisa. Time has been good to you."

Cuddy blushed, almost ashamed to admit that time had not been so kind to her friend. She was shorter than she remembered and she was hiding weight around her chin and her mid-section. Her eyes were still the same dark blue with flecks of silver, her hair was still blonde and curly, but it was shorter. She looked tired. But then again, she had spent the last 25 years raising a daughter virtually alone while working full time.

"Are you ready to get started?" Cuddy asked with a huge smile on her face. She was genuinely excited about working with Sarah again. From Sarah, Charlotte had learned to be efficient and self-serving all while maintaining a positive attitude and a good report with clients. But like a carbon copy of both of her parent's, Charlotte's characteristics were blurred and uneven.

"Before we go in, I have to ask." Sarah grasped her daughter's arm. "You haven't seen your father while you've been in New Jersey, have you?"

"We've seen each other." Charlotte shrugged. "He's cordial enough. I mean, what's he going to say after ten years? "Hey sweetie, sorry I abandoned you"?" She laughed to herself "I think he's being smart by not saying anything."

"Sarah," Cuddy shifted uncomfortably "Things are running really smoothly. Charlotte's plans for the rehab facility are just flying along. I think he realizes that he could mess things up by coming back into the picture."

"Well that's not necessarily a good thing," She looked at Charlotte sharply "Is it?"

"Mom, it works, so let's just leave it alone." Charlotte sighed and picked up her mother's suitcase. "Let's get you inside and started so we can go house hunting later in the week."

"Since when did you become so practical?" Sarah laughed and wrapped her arm around Charlotte's waist.

"Since she was entrusted with two million dollars and saving thousands of lives." Cuddy teased.

"Since I realized all the people who raised me where still children themselves." Charlotte poked her mother's arm and smiled at Cuddy.

*

Cuddy was standing at the clinic's front desk giving Sarah a rundown of the last few years worth of paperwork when Chase walked up to her.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if you've seen Dr. Carrington." He smiled at the unknown woman and turned back to Cuddy "She asked for a few patient files and she's not responding to her pager."

"I believe she went up to rehab to check on the progress." Cuddy looked up at him "Dr. Chase, this is Sarah Carrington with the Department of Social Services."

"Also Charlotte's mum," He reached out his hand and shook hers "I should have realized. You look so much alike." Both women laughed.

"I am not responsible for anything but her coloring." Sarah laughed "But I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you, Dr. Chase."

With a smile, Chase excused himself and walked out of the clinic. As the door was shutting, it swung open again and in walked House. He stopped at the other side of the counter and started flipping though folders. Slowly he noticed the two pairs of eyes looking at him and he looked up.

"Oh great." He grumbled "You're here again."

"Hello to you too." Sarah smiled sweetly.

"Have you ever heard the phrase killing with kindness?" House hobbled around the counter and came face to face with Sarah

"Please say it's working." Sarah snapped back.

"House." Cuddy interrupted "Sarah is here on behalf of the Department of Social Services. She's reviewing the ER and clinic."

"Something about uncooperative doctors…" Sarah flipped through her notes. "I think your name was mentioned a few times."

"Well," House started sarcastically but received a glaring look of warning from Cuddy. "My apologies. You will have my full cooperation this time. I am your humble servant." With a quick mock bow, he turned around and walked away.

"He hasn't been himself the last few months." Cuddy remarked after he left. "He doesn't fight as much as he used to. I think I could get used to it."

"He doesn't look too good." Sarah looked in the direction he had left.

"He's in a lot of pain." Cuddy explained "And I think the last few months have taken a toll on him."

"I can tell." Sarah sighed. "He's not the same man, is he."

"No he is not." Cuddy agreed. "But he's there. Somewhere behind the pain and the drugs, House is still in there."

"I sure hope so." Sarah shook her head as if to shake out the memories. "Let's get back to work."


	4. Tear Down The House

**Tear Down The House**

_I remember crying over you  
And I don't mean like a couple of tears  
And I'm blue  
I'm talkin' about collapsing  
And screaming at the moon  
But I'm a better man  
For having gone through it  
Yes, I'm a better man  
For having gone through…_

_Tear down the house  
That I grew up in  
I'll never be the same again  
Take everything that I used to own  
And burn it in a pile_

_And bulldoze the woods  
That I ran through  
Carry the pictures of me and you  
I have no memory of who I once was  
And I don't remember your name_

"She has to have a backyard." Sarah said, walking through the kitchen of the house that she and Charlotte were touring. "This won't do." She turned and looked at Charlotte's real estate agent

"I actually have a house down the street that has a large backyard, but it's above your price range." Jim looked at Charlotte sympathetically

"Mom, it's ok." She walked to the back window where Sarah was standing "There's enough of a back yard for Pavlov. If I were to get three more dogs, I'd start to worry. And not about the size of the backyard." She winced and grabbed her hip. Her mother looked at her suspiciously, but Charlotte continued, "It's got three bedrooms, Mom. That's way more than I need."

"And you haven't seen the best part." Jim walked over to a door in the kitchen "A fully finished basement that I really think will impress you."

"That bathtub in the master suite was amazing." Sarah nodded slowly. "When can she move in?"

"The owners are moving in about a month." Jim said, sure Sarah was going to bite his head off.

"A month? While my daughter lives in a hotel? Isn't there something more available?" Sarah took a step towards Jim and his expression made Charlotte suppress a giggle. She knew there was a reason she waited until her mom was here.

"Not in her price range." Jim said, still trying to make the sale. "But I really do think this house fits your needs. It's a short commute to work, and in fact, I have sold other houses to doctors from the hospital. In fact, the Dean of Medicine lives down the street."

"Telling us that Lisa Cuddy lives down the street isn't going to make us any less homeless." Sarah said through her teeth.

"Look, I know it's a long wait, but I can see on your face that you love this place." Jim addressed Charlotte "So I'll talk to the owners and see if I can get them to wave the closing costs or throw in some extra perks so that you can afford to wait for it."

"Thanks, Jim." She looked around one last time. "I do really love this house."

"Great!" Jim smiled "I'll talk to them later today and then I'll get back to you as soon as I hear from them!"

"Thank you, Jim." Sarah smiled, shook his hand, then led Charlotte out the door.

When they got outside, Charlotte got out her keys and handed them to her mom.

"Would you mind driving?" When she got a weird look from her mother, she explained, "My period is about to start and I'm having killer cramps."

"Aren't you on birth control?" She grabbed the keys from her daughter

"Mom!" Charlotte looked horrified

"I'm just saying, you've never had cramps before, so I was just thinking maybe it's because you're off birth control." Sarah shrugged and walked around to the other side of the car

"I've had cramps before." Charlotte got into the car "And I'm not off birth control."

"You aren't? Then who are you sleeping with?" Sarah started the car as Charlotte put her head in her hands and screamed "Why are you embarrassed? There's no one around to hear us. We used to talk about these things."

"That was before you started scaring my real estate agent and asking about birth control!" Charlotte looked completely mortified

"Hey, I got him to talk to the owners to wave your closing costs. You should be thanking me." Sarah started to pull out of the driveway.

"Thank you, Mom." She sighed. "Now please just take me back to work."

"You don't want to talk about it?" Sarah asked

"Talk about what?" Charlotte looked at her in confusion

"Your cramps. Birth control. Dr. Chase." Sarah shrugged

"Mom!" She started laughing "I am not sleeping with Robert! Where did that come from?"

"I saw you and "Robert" the other day at lunch. I saw the way he looked at you." She smirked "I also saw the way your father looked at you two as well. He doesn't like Dr. Chase much."

"No, I guess he doesn't." Charlotte shrugged "And don't go suggesting a revenge tactic. I don't want to hear it. I like Robert. He's a friend. Dad doesn't have anything to do with me and Robert and never will."

"Me and Robert." Sarah giggled "I love the way that sounds."

"Mom," Charlotte closed her eyes in pain and leaned her head back against the head rest. "Just drive."

*

Charlotte leaned over a book of swatches with Cuddy and laughed.

"I never thought I'd be picking out carpet for the rehab before I'd be picking out carpet for my first home." Charlotte flipped over to a new sample and ran her hand over it

"Are the owners going to wave closing costs?" Cuddy ran her hand over the sample after Charlotte and shook her head

"Yup." Charlotte ran her hand over the next sample. "Ooh, I like this one."

"Why don't you move out of the hotel and stay with me?" Cuddy asked, nodding her head to agree about the sample and flipping to the next "It would save you some money. I'm right down the street from your new place, so you can get the feel of carpooling in the morning."

"Carpooling?" Charlotte laughed "You have this all figured out."

"I don't have many girlfriends, Charlotte and you've always been like a little sister." She shrugged "Which, I realize, is weird." She stopped at another sample and rubbed it softly. "I like this one a lot." Charlotte nodded, then winced. "More pain?"

"Yeah, but it's livable." Charlotte shrugged.

"Please let me do an ultrasound." Cuddy begged, forgetting the carpet samples

"No, it's fine. It's just another benign cyst, probably making my left ovary the size of a baseball, and it's in an inoperable place so you're just going to give me pain killers and I'll be on my way." Charlotte smiled "I've been through this for the past five years."

"Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is very manageable, Charlotte. Let us manage it." She said seriously, "We're doctors. It's what we do."

"I promise if the pain gets to a point where I'm stuck in bed all day, I'll let you look at me." She countered "But until then, you're keeping that ultrasound machine far away from me." She returned her attention to the carpet samples. "I think I really like this dark blue one."

"Really? Dark blue?" Cuddy looked at it closely "Isn't it a little… dark? Why not a lighter blue, like this." She pointed at the next sample

"It's too institutional." Charlotte shook her head

"Charlotte… look around." Cuddy laughed "You are in an institution."

*

"And where were you?" House asked as Thirteen walked into the office "Did you not get my super duper important page?"

"Sorry." She shrugged then explained, "I was having my review with Old Lady Carrington."

"Old Lady Carrington?" House repeated in a tone somewhere between amusement and disgust

"That's what the nurses are calling her." Kutner spoke up "With two Carringtons in the hospital, they were getting confused."

"She's not old…" House backed away, almost self-consciously "She's younger than I am."

His team didn't respond.

"I'm not old. I'm youthful. I'm spry." To prove his point, he leaned on his cane and kicked his heels into the air.

"I think someone is having an age crisis." Taub muttered under his breath

"Someone needs to…" House stopped himself and looked at Taub thoughtfully "No, you aren't fun to pick on anymore."

"You know, bullies don't always get their way." Thirteen challenged House

"Yes I do." House paused and raised his eyebrows "You learned that from one of the Carringtons I bet. My money is on the older."

"So this page," Taub held up his pager "Was it important?"

"Not particularly, I just really missed you guys." House hobbled over to the coffee pot When his team didn't respond, he continued. "This just in! 46 year old man, vision loss, severe-" He stopped when he heard a rumble coming from the hallway and stared open mouth as paramedics came running by the windows pushing a gurney. Slowly, he made his way to the window and watched the stream of hospital employees run by followed by Chase and Cuddy. Cuddy was shouting directions, but no one could understand her as she ran by.

"What was that?" Kutner asked in wonder

"The elevator was magically transformed into a clown car…" House was still staring into the hall way when he turned around. "Why are you all still sitting here! Run!"

As his team was standing up to follow the chase, Sarah came running into the room.

"Greg!" She shouted, practically running into House "Greg! She collapsed upstairs. They won't tell me what's wrong." She grabbed onto his shirt and he instinctively put his hand on her back to stabilize her. "Please, Greg." Without looking at his team standing behind him in shock, he pushed passed Sarah and started down the hall at full speed, followed by the rest of the room.

As the reached an intersection, Cameron and Foreman met up with them.

"We just saw everyone running down the hall," Foreman looked at Thirteen "What the hell happened."

"I think Charlotte collapsed." Thirteen pointed to House and Sarah in the lead.

"Where is everyone going?" Cameron still looked confused.

"He took off running," Kutner looked at House "And if he's running, it's worth following."

The parade was rounding the corner to the OR when Cuddy jumped out in front, stopping them short.

"What's happening." House tried to get around her "Damn it, tell me."

"She collapsed upstairs in the rehab clinic." Cuddy started, looking from House to Sarah "She's been experiencing pain due to a cyst on her ovary. I think it exploded instead of imploding. Sometimes, they do that." House tried to get past her again, and she forcibly stopped him

"Let me in there." He insisted

"You can't do anything. She's in surgery." Cuddy continued to push him back.

"I have to do something." He shouted. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Greg," Sarah came up from behind and touched his arm

"You're supposed to sit in the waiting room with all the other concerned fathers." Cuddy stared at him with an unwavering glare.

Behind House, his team exchanged nervous glances.

"Did I just hear what I think I heard?" Foreman whispered to Cameron. She shook her head slowly, not sure she understood.

Cuddy turned leaving House with Sarah and started to go to the observation room. As she opened the door, House was there to hold it open.

"House," Cuddy stopped him "You can't go in there."

"Why not?" House asked "Aren't I a doctor at this hospital?"

"Not now," Cuddy looked past him at the crowd of people gathering behind him and continued in a whisper, "Now you are family and you wait with family."

"Fine." House let go of the door. "I'll be waiting in my office. Send Chase in when she's out of surgery."

As he turned to walk back to his office, the crowd magically parted allowing House and Sarah to walk back through. They stayed an arms length apart, but in step the entire way back to his office.

"You were right," Foreman turned to Cameron, "Dr. Carrington was hiding something."

*

Chase walked slowly down the hall to House's office. He paused at the door, looking at House, tossing his ball in the air and Sarah leaning back in a chair with her head against the wall. Gently, he opened the door and walked into the room. The tension was so thick, he felt as though he was suffocating.

"You probably know by now you just operated on my daughter." House said without looking at Chase "So don't mince words."

"The cyst on her left ovary did indeed explode," Chase said cautiously "The damage done to the ovary was so severe, we had to remove the entire structure."

"So other than losing an ovary, she's fine?" Sarah asked quietly

"She's recovering in the ICU. She'll be in a lot of pain-"

"Thank you." House cut him off "I know the rest."

"Greg, I don't." Sarah stood up and looked at him "And you aren't going to tell me, or you will but you'll do it in a way that is going to make me hate you even more, so just let Dr. Chase finish."

House waved his hand allowing Chase to continue.

"She'll be in a lot of pain. Because there was internal bleeding, we had to go in from the outside, cutting stomach muscles and… such." He shifted uncomfortably. "She's sedated right now and we'd like to keep her that way for a few days, allowing for time to recover."

"But she will recover? Almost as if she had a cesarean?" Sarah asked expectantly "She'll be fine, just without an ovary?"

The entire situation was incredibly awkward for Chase. He shifted his weight again and nodded. Rather unexpectedly, Sarah ran up to Chase and hugged him. He looked over her head and looked at House, who nodded his head in thanks.

"Can I see her?" Sarah pulled away and looked up at Chase with big, blue eyes. For the first time, he noticed that they weren't Charlotte's eyes.

"She's asleep. But yeah," He nodded "I can take you there."

"Not necessary." House stood up and grabbed his cane. "I know the way."

*

Charlotte struggled to open her eyes. Her body was screaming at her to just go back to sleep. She opened her right eye first, trying to focus on the blurry figure sitting on the edge of her bed. Giving up, she opened the other eye and House came into focus.

"Your mother went back to her hotel room." He said gruffly "She hasn't slept in three days."

"You don't look much better." Charlotte commented. Her voice was dry and her mouth barely moved. House grabbed a glass of water and held it to her mouth so she could drink.

"Don't try to move." He warned "They slashed your abdominals into ribbons. It's going to take time to heal."

"Thank you." She whispered and leaned her head back onto the pillow, her stomach searing with pain. "Too late."

"They had to remove your left ovary." He informed her

"That's funny." She chuckled, then winced "They could have done that five years ago, but they refused."

"Some doctors are stupid." He countered

"Why are you here." Charlotte looked at him closely. He hadn't shaved in days.

"If you believe the Christians-" He started, but her glare made him stop. "You were the only one who could ever do that."

"Do what?" She asked

"Stop me before I said something annoying." He let loose a throaty chuckle and reached for his cane, but didn't get off the bed. "When I first heard your mother was pregnant, I was looking forward to being a father so I could annoy and embarrass you as much as my parents did me, but I could never do that to you."

"I guess I should thank you, then." She said sarcastically and shuttered as a wave of pain overtook her entire body

"Didn't your father ever tell you that if you make that face, it'll stay that way forever?" He asked as he got off the bed and limped to the medicine cart. "I'm going to give you more morphine." He said as he grabbed her line "Don't worry, I'm a doctor."

As he injected the morphine, she turned away. He turned around to throw the syringe away and he heard her whisper,

"Why did you go away?" Her voice was small and it tugged at his heart. She was five again, asking if Santa would know to look for her at his house instead of her mother's. She was eight and she desperately wanted a puppy, but her mother was allergic so could she get one and keep it at his place?

"I thought you'd be better without me." He offered weakly

"That's bullshit." She muttered turning back with tears in her eyes.

"I don't think it is, Dr. Carrington." He tried to smile, but her expression of shock stopped him

"You really thought that I would do better without you? I needed you." She tried to raise her head to get a better look at him, but the morphine was kicking in and she fell back onto the pillow. "But I guess someone needing you doesn't mean you're responsible for them." Slowly, she closed her eyes and let the drugs take over.

*

House was still sitting in the chair beside Charlotte's bed when Wilson walked in. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed.

"You look like crap." Wilson informed him. "Go home."

"I can't." House opened his eyes "She's going to wake up again soon."

"Chase and Cuddy have both offered to sit with her until you or Sarah come back." Wilson had his jacket over his arm and briefcase in hand, but he put it down, sensing that the conversation would continue.

House looked at Wilson, then turned his attention back to Charlotte.

"Would it have changed our anything if you knew I had a daughter?" House asked in a throaty, flat tone.

"No." Wilson responded, slightly shocked. "But I would have believed sooner that you actually had emotions." He thought about it some more, "Actually, it makes sense." House looked at him quizzically. "The way you responded to some of the younger patients. You said you didn't care, but you did. I think you saw bits of Charlotte in every single one of them."

"That's not true. I really didn't care." House said flippantly

"You want to believe that everyone lies and you do a fairly good job of convincing yourself of that," Wilson looked at Charlotte "But you also want to believe that kisses heal scraped elbows." When House tried to argue, Wilson stopped him saying, "Otherwise, you wouldn't have sat here for the last three days."

"You found me out." House admitted with sarcasm

"Don't worry. I won't betray your cold, cynical exterior." Wilson grabbed his briefcase "Chase is waiting by the nurse's station to take your place."

"You said a mouthful." House massaged his temples with his hands

"Don't do that." Wilson looked at him seriously "From what I hear, you're about ten years too late to be standing on the front porch with a shotgun." With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

Seconds after he left, Chase appeared in the doorway.

"Go home, House." He said commandingly. "She'll probably sleep through till the morning and if she does wake up, I'll be here."

House eyed the man who had been his underling, his scapegoat for years. If there was anyone who he was going to trust with his daughter, it would be that man. He had trained him well. Chase was clearly afraid and fear was a good thing. Slowly, House stood up. His leg was stiff and he leaned on his cane more than usual.

"Make sure she doesn't die." He said simply as he hobbled out of the room.

Chase grabbed her charts and sat down in the seat House had been occupying seconds before. He started flipping through it when he heard a voice softly say,

"Does it tell you what my middle name is?" Charlotte looked at him intently. Chase didn't respond. "Helen. My initials are C.H.C.H. Guess who named me." The left side of her mouth curved up into a smile. He smiled back. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"Hey," He leaned forward and grabbed her hand "Everyone is allowed a few secrets."

"He has a pretty big shadow. It took years to work my way out of it." She admitted "Thank you for performing my surgery." Her smile grew a little bigger

"I'm sorry I had to remove your ovary." He laughed "It really makes any future romantic involvement awkward."

"Awkward or extremely narcissistic." She goaded

"Yes, I am so proud of my ability to maim a woman for life, I need to be around her all the time." He rolled his eyes

"Hey, I was not maimed." She pointed her finger at him "Sure, I lost an ovary, but I also lost about ten pounds. In my eyes, you are a genius." He looked at her skeptically "Hey, don't be so quick to dismiss House Family Optimism. It may masquerade as sarcasm, but it has it's basis in truth."

"I still can't wrap my head around House being a dad." Chase shook his head and leaned back.

"He wasn't the same back then." She reassured him "I had a pink room at his apartment. A white sleigh bed with tie-dye bed sheets. He was a good dad."

"I like how you justify him being a good dad by wall color and furnishings." Chase laughed.

"I was a baby. I was his baby." She sighed "Children make judgments off of material things. He made room for me in his life even though I only saw him twice a year." She shifted uncomfortably "No more House."

"Agreed." Chase smiled "So let's talk about us."

"I was only joking about you being narcissistic." She looked shocked

"I wasn't." His eyes didn't move from her face. "I really enjoyed having lunch with you."

"Enjoyed." Charlotte rolled her head away and muttered, "Thanks, House."

"No, I mean, I enjoyed it so much that when you're better, I want to take you out to dinner." He smiled "I will admit, however, that House does make things extremely uncomfortable."

"He does that." She rolled her eyes "And we're talking about him again."

"He'd be loving this." Chase leaned in again and put his head close to Charlotte's "But I'm willing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he's always there if that means you're going to be there."

"That was really romantic." Charlotte smiled, "And really creepy."

"I can keep going until you agree to go to dinner with me…" Chase put his chin in his hands and waited for her response

"Well," She scrunched her face as she shifted her body "I think you owe me for all this pain."

"I can give you morphine." Chase started to get up but Charlotte grabbed his hand

"No," Her hand dropped down back onto the bed "It's good pain. This pain means there'll be no more pain later." She chuckled "So I guess I should take you out to dinner."

Cuddy popped her head in the door and cleared her throat. Charlotte and Chase looked up at her and Chase turned back to Charlotte with a smile.

"You get better first, then we'll talk about the details." He picked up her hand and gave it a quick squeeze and then left the room.

"Well," Cuddy walked into the room "I guess now that you're stuck in bed, you'll let us do something about your pain." She said in reference to their earlier discussion.

"I'm fine." Charlotte insisted

"Did Chase give you more morphine?" Cuddy walked over to her charts

"I wouldn't let him." Charlotte informed her with a determined look on her face.

"Be practical, Charlotte." Cuddy put her charts back down "In a few days, I'll be discharging you and you're going to wish you still had it." She walked across the room and pulled out a syringe of morphine

"Lucky for me I know a guy who might be willing to share his pills." Charlotte closed her eyes as a new wave of pain passed over

"That's not funny." She walked back over to the bed "I'm keeping you as long as I can, but in two days, I have to discharge you."

"Well, eventually I have go back into the real world." She looked around "Although, I like this world."

"Charlotte," Cuddy sat down on the edge of her bed with the syringe still in hand "You can't be alone for the first few weeks."

"And I bet you've already talked to my mom and she can't take off work to stay here." She nodded in understanding

"I can't afford to take off, either." Cuddy said apologetically.

"I don't think I want to hear this…" Charlotte looked at Cuddy seriously

"No, I think you do." Cuddy shifted her position to look directly at Charlotte. "We weren't even thinking that far in advance when House came into my office pointing out that you can't lift anything or even walk up stairs without help until you're fully healed."

"And he's going to be the one who's going to help me walk up stairs?" Charlotte asked incredulously.

"I'm giving him two weeks paid leave." She said solemnly

"You can't force me to go home with him." She shuttered in pain as she tried to sit up

"You're going to go wherever I push your wheelchair." Cuddy took the cap off the syringe

"You can't just shut me up with drugs." Charlotte tried to grab her arm, but couldn't raise her own.

"Trust me, I know." Cuddy sighed and put the syringe to the IV "But I can tell you to go to bed and when your mom comes in the morning, we'll talk about it."

"I am 25 years old." Charlotte said softly "I should be able to make my own decisions."

"You can," Cuddy leaned back "But let me advise you. It was House's idea, and I rarely agree with his ideas, but I agree with this one. You two have a lot to talk about."

"You're giving me the choice to choose your decision." Charlotte smiled "I feel slightly trapped."

"Goodnight, Charlotte." Cuddy stood up and turned the light off above the bed then walked out of the room.

*

"Scooter," Sarah crept into Charlotte's room. She sat her bag down beside Charlotte's bed and gently sat on the edge of the bed. "Scooter," she repeated "Good morning."

"Mom," Charlotte said groggily as she opened her eyes "What time is it."

"Morning." Sarah smiled softly as her daughter opened her eyes

"I've never liked mornings." Charlotte moved uncomfortably

"No," Sarah cupped Charlotte's face with her hand "You only liked mornings if you were greeting them from the other side."

"At sunset, I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try."

"Ray Bradbury." Sarah smiled, "I also think he said, "I don't write about science fiction, I write about what's possible." She laughed

"You want to talk about staying with House." Charlotte caught the hint

"Yes," Sarah nodded solemnly, "I want to talk about your father."

"Well, I don't want to talk about it." Charlotte tried to turn her head, but her mother stopped her

"Look," Sarah reached for her bag and pulled out the name plate from Charlotte's old office.

_Dr. Charlotte Carrington-House._ Charlotte ran her fingers over the letters.

"Part of you wanted to be his daughter at some point in your life." Sarah looked at her daughter lovingly as she continued to finger the letters.

"It's not my professional name." She put the name plate down

"No, it's not." Sarah picked up the name plate that Charlotte had put down "But at some point, you wanted it to be," She smiled again "Or else you wouldn't have this."

"His name would have ruined my career. No one would have wanted to work with me." She sighed

"But it's your name." Sarah insisted

"What's in a name?" Charlotte said flippantly

"Charlotte," She thrust the name plate back into her hands, "This is who you are. Like it or not, half of your genes belong to that name." She pointed at "House" and continued, "You chose to start working here, so you need to learn how to deal with it."

"Life is full of choices." Charlotte said softly

"And choices have consequences." Sarah patted her daughter's hand "Suck it up, Scooter."

"Mom," Charlotte looked up and saw Jim, her real estate agent, lingering outside the door "Mom! You brought Jim?"

"Well," Sarah blushed slightly "He called yesterday, saying the owners approved your offer. He wanted to sign right away."

"Mom, I'm sort of indisposed at the moment." Charlotte looked at her mom in disbelief.

"Your right hand still works, doesn't it?" Sarah shrugged "I figured if you signed now, when the owners move out in a month you'd be fully healed and able to move in."

"Mom," Charlotte tried again

"Oh, Mom nothing. Stop it." Sarah stood up and walked away from her daughter. "You obviously wanted me here to help you with the transition and here I am, giving you everything you could possibly want and you're trying to tell me it's not what you want?" She stopped and turned to look at Charlotte. "I'm tired, Charlotte. I've been tired for 25 years. Let me do this for you. It'll be the last thing I push you to do, I promise."

"You really don't feel that way," Charlotte looked insecure, "Do you?"

"No," Sarah sat back down "But I am tired." She closed her eyes to fight back tears. "I've fought for what was best for you for so long, I forgot about me. I tried to protect you from the world, now it's time for you to figure it all out." She sighed, "I have seen Greg in everything you do for the last 25 years and I think it's time that you see it too."

"I'm sorry…" Charlotte started

"No," Sarah stopped her "Don't be sorry. Do something about it!" She motioned for Jim to come in "Start a new life. Find out who you really are."

"Are you ready to sign, Dr. Carrington?" Jim walked in, holding the contract in his hand

"Dr. Carrington-House." Sarah corrected "And yes, she is."

"Promise this is the last thing you're going to push me to do?" Charlotte looked up at her mom

"Of course." Sarah said with a wink "Cross my heart, hope to die."

"Stick a needle in your eye?" Charlotte said with a big grin on her face as she took Jim's pen and signed her name.


	5. Find My Love

**Find My Love**

_What makes it easy to treat people bad?  
Some things you say and you can't take 'em back  
What makes it easy to run from the past,  
Like a child runs from the dark?_

_Where do you go when it's perfectly clear?  
You might find your way but you won't find it here  
What makes it easy to sound so sincere,  
When you know that you don't care?_

_Love gets lost  
_

He felt like there should have been balloons. Balloons and a banner that said: "Welcome back into my life" strung across the doorway. But there wasn't.

House ripped open the first box and was greeted by the smell of musty bed sheets. He pulled them out slowly and laughed to himself. Charlotte picked out these sheets herself when she was three. Bright neon pinks, greens, blues and purples offended his eyes, but Charlotte had loved them. He threw them into a pile in the corner of the room. They would definitely have to be dry cleaned later today.

He opened another box and pulled out a pink Barbie car. "Daddy," Charlotte had said "When I can drive, will you buy me a pink Ferrari just like Barbie's?" He shuttered at the thought. Slowly, he dug through the box of Barbies and began to wonder why he ever let her play with them in the first place. Anything that pink shouldn't have been allowed past his door.

The next box was the one he was looking for. On the top, Charlotte had scribbled in little ten year old hand writing "To Keep Daddy Company!" He opened it up and smiled at the teddy bear sitting on top. Dr. Cuddles. Cuddy had given the bear to Charlotte after she had her tonsils removed. That bear went everywhere with Charlotte. One summer House had gotten sick right before Charlotte was scheduled to go back to her mother, so Charlotte left Dr. Cuddles with him to help him get through it. "Dr. Cuddles is good at his job, Daddy." Charlotte's voice echoed in his head "Just like you."

In the box he found father's day cards, paper hearts and snowflakes, finger paintings and little things Charlotte had mailed him throughout the years. A photo album was next, which he took the time to flip through.

He smiled as he looked at the first page. He had wanted to capture the first moment the fetus became his baby, so her first picture had been taken when she was bloody and screaming in the doctor's hands. The first few days were well documented in pictures. Coming home, feedings, House's first diaper change, Charlotte and Cuddy's first introduction, first Halloween, first Christmas… it was all there.

This was the box where he had hidden Charlotte ten years ago.

He heard a knock on his door, but chose to ignore it. A few minutes later, Wilson stuck his head in the door and shouted his name.

"In the bedroom!" House shouted in reply. Wilson came down the hall and stopped in the doorway

"Jesus," He looked around at the neon tie dye bed sheets and toys "Did the 80's explode in here?"

"I went and picked up a few things in storage." He explained as he opened another box

Wilson sat down on the bed and grabbed the discarded photo album and started flipping through the pages. He stopped for a moment and chuckled

"Here is the proof, yet I still can't see you being very domestic." He held the book out and pointed to a picture of House with his back turned to the camera. With his right arm, he was hanging an ornament on a Christmas tree. In his left arm was a very small Charlotte, looking over her father's shoulder at the camera with wide eyes and a pacifier in her mouth.

"You haven't gotten to the one of us in the kitchen." House informed him as he closed another box and put it aside

"Will you be sleeping on the couch while Charlotte stays here?" Wilson put the album down

"I spend most nights out there anyway." House shrugged

Wilson squinted his eyes and looked at his friend. Something was off. House wasn't making any witty comments, his face was passive and he was actually being straightforward.

"Do you need some help getting the place ready for her?" Wilson asked

"Sure." House grabbed the sheets and threw them at Wilson "Those need to be cleaned."

"I can drop them off at the dry cleaners on my way into work." Wilson balled the sheets up "Are you coming in today?"

"Later." House grabbed the marker sitting beside him on the floor and wrote TRASH on the side of one of the boxes

*

It had been a production getting Charlotte out of the hospital. After a morning of well-wishers stopping by her room, filling out discharge papers and a nervous mother pacing the floor, Charlotte was ready to leave.

"I just need to make sure you have everything you need." Sarah kept repeating "Living with Greg isn't easy."

"Mom," Charlotte kept trying to reassure her "I know. I think I spent more time with him than you ever did."

"We never spent a lot of time together, did we." Sarah sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her daughter

"You broke up when I was three." She shrugged "Most of my memories are of you two apart, and I really think it's better that way."

"I just never wanted you to remember us always fighting." Sarah said apologetically

"But you were always fighting! Why deny the fact that Dad is an asshole and you got fed up with it? You two being apart was the best gift you could have ever given me."

"You don't remember, do you." Charlotte shot her mother a questioning look. "You hated me. For months after he left, you cried yourself to sleep every night. There was nothing I could do."

"Mom,"

"Greg moved on like he always does, but he always made time for you." She shook her head "You made him human. He would never admit to loving you and needing you, but you made him feel like there was something more to life." She grasped for her daughter's hand "Let him repay the favor."

"I don't think he's capable." Charlotte said softly

"Never underestimate Gregory House." Sarah said resolutely.

"She's right, Charlotte." A voice came from the doorway. Cuddy walked into the room and stood next to Sarah "You never challenge Gregory House and you never underestimate him. In some roundabout way, he'll deliver."

Charlotte sat there a moment without saying a word. She looked from her mother to Cuddy. These were the two women who had raised her. 11 months out of the year and all of the major holidays except Christmas, this was her family. She didn't know how to respond to what they were telling her.

"After a final round of tests, you're going to be discharged." Cuddy helped her out by changing the subject. With a twinkle in her eye, she added, "Dr. Chase has agreed to come along to help move you in."

"Oh God." Charlotte dramatically threw her head back on the pillow.

"We need a big strong man to carry the bags." Sarah winked conspiratorially. Charlotte groaned as her mother and Cuddy started laughing

*

Chase kept his arm firmly around Charlotte's waist as he helped her down the hall to House's bedroom. They paused in the open doorway and Charlotte stood in awe.

"It seems like little children aren't the only one who measure love by material things." Chase said softly as Charlotte burst out laughing

"They still make sheets like that?" Charlotte turned her head and looked past Cuddy and her mother to House hiding back in the hallway

"No." House shook his head

"You kept them?" Charlotte asked softly and looked back at the neon sheets.

"They are yours. I don't want them." House slowly walked forward past Sarah and Cuddy "They still make me want to vomit." He said walking into the room and throwing the bag he was carrying on the floor.

Charlotte made her way over to the bed and sat on the edge where she found Dr. Cuddles waiting on the pillows for her. This time it was Cuddy who laughed

"Dr. Cuddles!" She came up to the bed "House, where did you find him?"

"I kept it." He looked around uncomfortably "In storage."

"Greg," Sarah touched his arm lightly "Thank you."

"Sure." He nodded

*

House silently shuffled into Charlotte's bedroom and looked at the pill bottle sitting on her nightstand. He picked it up and fingered the label. _Viccodin. Carrington-House, Charlotte H._ He smiled. Naming her had been his greatest moment of genius. It flowed so beautifully.

"Put the pills down and step away from the nightstand." He heard a voice say sleepily beside him

"I wasn't going to take any." He reassured her too quickly

"It's okay. Lisa said you'd be taking some, so she gave me extra prescriptions and said to tell you that you're not going to get any when you ask later." Charlotte pushed herself into an upright position in bed.

"Drat, foiled again." He put the bottle down and looked at her

"You do know I run a rehab facility." She eyed him cautiously

"Do you magically treat pain there?" He eyed her back

"Your friends are all enablers." She had a warning tone to her voice

"That's why they're my friends." He pointed out

"Please don't take my pills." She begged

"Psh," he waved his hand in the air "What kind of father would I be?"

"Do I really need to answer that?" She raised an eyebrow and waited for his response. He stood there for a moment before he tapped her leg and muttered,

"Scoot over, Scooter." He sat on the edge of her bed and looked her directly in the eyes, then looked away, then asked awkwardly, "Do you want an explanation?"

"No." She shook her head "Not really. Not if you're going to lie."

"Excuse me?" He said in mock surprise "I am flabbergasted you would think that!"

"I'm a behavioral therapist. The stuff that happens between your ears," She pointed at his head "It's all bullshit."

"The stuff between my ears is not bullshit." He said defiantly

"Yes it is. You are an empty organism. A random response generator. Nothing you say can be trusted." She stopped and smiled, "But your behavior can always be trusted. Your actions speak louder than words."

"Hey," He started waving his hands in the air "Does this tell you I'm happy?"

"No," She grabbed his hands to stop them "It tells me you're waving your hands in the air." She pulled away and added, "Like an idiot."

"I don't remember teaching you this." House sat back and looked at Charlotte

"You didn't." She smiled softly "I learned it all by myself."

"You really are my daughter." He responded with a smirk

"Don't get excited, but I have been told I am disturbingly void of most human emotions." She shrugged "You can give yourself a pat on the back for that."

"I'd take that as a compliment, but you just told me all that fluffy emotional stuff didn't matter."

"I thought my father died until his girlfriend called to say, "No sweetie, he didn't die, he just wishes he did. No, he doesn't want to speak with you right now. I'll tell him to call." She stopped when she realized she was leaning forward and her fists were clenched. Slowly, she leaned back and continued. "He never called."

"I wanted to-" He tried to speak

"So I rationalized." She took in a deep breath. "I rationalized the best way a 15 year old could. It wasn't me. He loved me. It must be him." She shrugged "That was the day emotions died. If you could stop loving me, I could stop loving you."

"You put on a good front." He said after a minute "You say you don't care, but you do. You wouldn't be here if there wasn't part of you that still did care."

"I'm tired." She slid down into the covers more and rolled her head away from House

He sat there for a moment, not wanting to leave the conversation.

"For what it's worth," He started talking but saw no response from Charlotte. "I wanted to call. Every day for the last ten years." He stopped and looked at his hands "Lisa gave me updates. Your mom sent me pictures." He looked up at the ceiling. "You ex-boyfriend looked like a tool."

Charlotte, who had been watching him out of the corner of her eyes, gave a small chuckle

"Stacy actually was the one who broke the news you got into Michigan." He shook his head and looked back at his hands "I never understood how you went in to college wanting an elementary education degree and walked away with a doctorate in psychology." He stopped talking. He didn't know what else to say.

"I took a medical psychology class." Charlotte said softly "My professor apparently taught you too."

"Dr. Bud Levinson?" House sounded surprised "He was old when I had him."

"He hated me." She continued "But he said I was too smart to be teaching snot-nosed preschoolers. He said I was too much like you and if I didn't become a psychologist, he'd personally hunt me down and kill me."

"That sounds like Bud." House nodded "And it worked?"

"He changed my mind." She still was facing away from him but he heard her sniff "He made me think if I became famous, you'd want to be my dad again."

"I never stopped." He said clumsily

"Look," She rolled over and looked at him "I know being vulnerable makes you feel awkward, so we'll stop."

"Thanks." He laughed a little "Don't go running off to Chase and telling him what just happened."

"I don't think I'm going to be running anywhere anytime soon." She laughed then yawned.

House sat on the edge of the bed awkwardly until he leaned forward in a swift motion and kissed her forehead

"Good night, Scooter." He said in a low voice then got off the bed and limped out of the room.

*

Charlotte was sitting on the couch, strumming one of House's guitars and humming as she picked the strings. She must have been picking louder than she thought because she didn't hear the knock on the door until someone called out her name.

"Oh," She turned around startled and saw Dr. Cameron standing in the doorway. "Hi."

"The door was open…" Cameron looked uncomfortable

"Yeah, House must not have locked it when he left." Charlotte turned back around and continued to pluck at the strings

"That's really pretty." Cameron said as she walked around the couch "What is it?"

"Simon and Garfunkel." Charlotte shrugged and put down the guitar "So go ahead and ask."

"Ask what?" Cameron looked startled

"Whatever you came to ask."

"I, um, it's just," Cameron stuttered and sat down on the other side of the sofa and Charlotte laughed

"I don't make you nervous, do I?" She smiled

"No, you just confuse me." Cameron shook her head "I thought you were hiding something."

"And I guess your skepticisms were warranted, weren't they." She painfully shifted her legs over the guitar and put them up on the coffee table

"I just wanted to apologize." Cameron said plainly

"For what? Seeing right through me?" Charlotte scoffed "You should get a gold star."

"I just…" Cameron stopped and looked at Charlotte "I treated you badly."

"Not to my face, so I don't really care."

"How can you be so nonchalant?"

"Have you met my father?" She picked up the guitar and started randomly fingering the strings

"What happened?" Cameron looked concerned "Why haven't we heard of you before this?"

"You might want to ask him." She stopped her fingers and grasped the neck of the guitar till her knuckles turned white "I normally don't like playing the victim, in fact, victims piss me off. But at this instant, I'm an ignorant and uninformed victim."

"You should ask him." Cameron insisted

"I don't really care what he has to say." Charlotte looked at her fingers "What he has to say won't change the past."

"You're so stubborn!" Cameron shouted passionately

"Why do you care so much?" Charlotte looked at Cameron with a look that Cameron could only describe as typical House.

"It's hard to explain," She started "But you've changed things at the hospital. I just want the equilibrium back."

"You want me to leave." Charlotte said instinctively

"No, not at all." Cameron insisted "But something happened to House when you came to the hospital with that little boy. I want you to help him figure out what changed."

"You want the old House back?"

"Yes."

Charlotte regarded Cameron with cold eyes.

"I am not responsible for that man." She said slowly and evenly. "So if you want your House back, then stop assuming he's my House and go tell him how you feel. He stopped being my House ten years ago, so I think you're more qualified than I am to be his advocate."

They sat in silence for a moment before Cameron stood up and left the apartment without saying a word, leaving Charlotte there with tears in her eyes.

*

"House!" Cuddy popped her head out of her office when she saw House walk into the clinic "What are you doing here? Go home!"

"All these years you fight to get me in the clinic and now you're kicking me out?" He said with mock surprise "Make up your mind!"

"You're supposed to be home taking care of Charlotte." Cuddy reminded him

"She's boring. She was so much more interesting when she was a kid." He picked up a file and Cuddy ripped it from his hands

"She's not supposed to be alone."

"We needed our space."

"Come with me." Cuddy motioned towards her office

"I follow that ass blindly." House trailed her

When they got into her office, Cuddy closed the door and looked at House intensely

"What is wrong with you?"

"Well I have been experiencing a touch of indigestion, but I believe it is mainly stress related." House put his hand against his chest "Thanks for your interest."

"I'm serious, House."

"And I'm not?"

"What are you doing here?" Cuddy insisted

"I'm checking on Jared." House said plainly "Charlotte was wondering how he was doing."

"Sure." Cuddy scoffed and walked to her desk

"I tell the truth for once and you don't believe me?" He opened his eyes wide "This does not bode well for us."

"Charlotte could have called."

"I wasn't lying when I said we needed our space."

"She hasn't even been there 24 hours, House."

"It's a small apartment, Cuddy." He mimicked

"What happened ten years ago that you're not telling me?" Cuddy said, her voice rising and frustration mounting.

"I lost my leg!" House's voice rose to a shout, "I didn't plan on losing my daughter!"

"Well, you did!" Cuddy shouted back

House flopped down on the chair across from her desk and put his hands over his eyes.

"Is that's what's really been bothering you all these years?" Cuddy asked in sudden realization

"No, it was the agonizing pain." He retorted

"Why didn't I see it before?" She shook her head

"The limp and cane didn't cue you in before now?"

"You wanted her to be there, you just didn't know how to ask! You missed bedtime stories and Ice Cream Day…" She smiled, remembering little Charlotte's favorite day of the summer, the day where she and House ate nothing but ice cream for 24 hours. "And now that you've screwed up, you don't know how to get it back."

"I do not screw up." He squinted his eyes "Well, except for that one time…"

"If I had known the key to making you less crotchety would be to bring Charlotte back, I would have done it years ago." Cuddy laughed

"Hey," House stood up "I enjoy being crotchety. It gives me that little extra sparkle and makes me a stand-out physician."

"What happened, House." Cuddy sat in the chair next to him and leaned in.

House sat there for a moment, tossing the words around in his head, trying to figure out how to explain what actually did happen ten years ago.

"She came to see me." House said slowly, "She doesn't know I know. She thought I was asleep."

"House," Cuddy reached for his hand, but he pulled away

"She was there with Stacy. She was afraid of me." House looked up at the ceiling "She asked if I'd be a "cripple" for the rest of my life. She wanted to know if I would lose my leg and if I did, what would it look like."

"Those are typical questions from a teenager facing-" Cuddy tried to defend Charlotte

"No," House shook his head "You didn't hear how she said it. She was disgusted. The man who had been her father was dead." He swallowed, "Hearing her fear and disappointment hurt more than the infarction itself."

"House," Cuddy said softly "She has lived the last ten years thinking you hate her. You need to tell her."

"She has no right to know!" House said angrily and stood up "She wrote me off that day. She decided I was no longer her father."

"She was 15!" Cuddy followed him with her eyes "She didn't know any better."

"You and I both know she was more mature than the average 15 year old." House rolled his eyes "You're trying to give her the benefit of the doubt and if there is one thing Charlotte always hated, it was the benefit of the doubt."

"And you have no idea if the Charlotte you raised her to be is the Charlotte she turned out to be!" Cuddy stood up and walked over to him. "She's not who you thought she would be. I think she would appreciate the benefit of the doubt in this situation."

"You honestly believe that?"

"I do, House." Cuddy nodded "She's had ten years of Sarah's sole influence. She's spent two years on her own in England studying at Oxford. She's spent most of her young life working to impress you. She is an absolutely brilliant behavioral therapist because that's what she thought you'd notice. She hasn't had a chance to be 25 yet because she's still emotionally stuck at 15." She laughed "The personal growth for the two of you must have been stunted that day."

"I feel like an ass." He said, looking down at the ground.

"More so than normal?" Cuddy said with a slight smile

"Yeah." He sighed

"House, go home." Cuddy walked away from House "Take her ice cream. Reinstitute Ice Cream Day. Talk about it." She turned around and looked at House. He was standing there, leaning against the wall with his head bent down. "You both seriously messed up. Figure it out."

*

House entered his apartment with ice cream in hand. When he had left, Charlotte had been sitting on the couch but she was no longer there. His guitar had been moved and he smiled. She still played. He took the ice cream into the kitchen and put it in the freezer. A peace offering. It had been a long time since he had made one of those.

He went into the hallway quietly, not wanting to wake her if she was resting. He reached the doorway and noticed something was wrong.

"Charlotte?" He called into the empty room. No response. He went to the closed bathroom door and knocked. "Charlotte?" He repeated. Still no response. He tested the door knob and it turned easily.

Charlotte was lying on the floor in front of the toilet, shivering. The room smelled of vomit. House dove onto the floor and picked up her head and she looked at him with wide, blank eyes.

"Charlotte," He felt her pulse. It wasn't racing, but it was above normal. She wasn't sweating. "What's wrong."

"It hurts so bad." She cried weakly

"I know," He started stroking her hair "We're going to make it better." He looked around. Her Viccodin pills weren't in the bathroom, but his were. He reached for them and opened the bottle and tried to give it to her but she pushed him away.

"No," She turned her head "I don't want them."

"Charlotte, you're in pain." He insisted

"No." She repeated. She looked up into his eyes and she saw her defiance in a new light

"I'm the addict, not you." He said, offering the pill again. "You're stronger than that."

*

House had convinced Charlotte to take the pain killers and had gotten her back into bed. She was sleeping now, but House didn't want to leave her side. He had nestled himself on the other side of the bed and was watching Charlotte as she slept.

"_Daddy!" House picked up the phone and was greeted by the high pitch excitability of a 4 year-old "Daddy, Connor Harris asked me to be his girlfriend."_

"_Aren't you a little young?" House asked with a smile on his face_

"_That's what I said, but Connor said no." House could see her shaking her head rapidly, little curls flying everywhere "He said boyfriends and girlfriends just hold hands and go to the movies. Sometimes they kiss, but we don't have to do that."_

"_Is that really what they do?" House asked, playing along_

"_Yup. But I told Connor I couldn't be his girlfriend unless I could have two boyfriends because you're already my boyfriend, Daddy!" She said eagerly_

"_And how do you figure that?"_

"_Because, Daddy, we hold hands when we're crossing the street and you take me to see movies and we kiss goodnight!" She said honestly "You're the best boyfriend in the world, Daddy. I don't want another one."_

"Daddy," the voice was lower and he felt a hand on his arm "Wake up." House opened his eyes and saw his grown up daughter looking at him from across the bed "You were laughing in your sleep. It was scaring me."

"Do you remember when Connor Harris asked you to be his girlfriend?" He asked in a deep, sleepy voice

"Ew, yes." Charlotte giggled "He kept asking me for weeks and when I told him no, he told all the other boys in my class that I had cooties and they would get it too if they came near me."

"That was probably for the best." House rolled over on his back and looked at the ceiling "Do you remember why you told him no?"

"Because my daddy was the best boyfriend ever and it's wrong to have more than one boyfriend." Charlotte smiled at the memory. "I told him my daddy loved me more than he ever could."

House was silent for a moment, then he turned his head and looked at Charlotte.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like crap. Now my throat hurts as well."

"I think I can fix that." House sat up and swung his leg off the bed and limped out of the room. A few minutes later, he limped back in holding two bowls. "I hope you still like mint chocolate chip." He handed her the bowl and went around to the other side of the bed and fell onto it.

"But I'm not allowed to eat in bed." She teased

"Just don't tell your mother." He leaned in and said in a hushed tone

They sat there in silence enjoying their ice cream until Charlotte started randomly laughing. House shot her a questioning look

"Look at us," She choked out "You with a bum leg and me with a bum uterus. Sitting in bed, drowning our sorrows in ice cream. We're so pathetic."

"I can feel my Y chromosome growing another leg as we speak." He said sarcastically as he took another bite.

"Promise me we can have ice cream for dinner, too." Charlotte said with a smile and House nodded his head.

They continued to eat in silence until House noticed Charlotte trying not to cringe in pain.

"It's been more than four hours." He reminded "You can have another."

"How come you're so good at regulating my Viccodin intake, but you suck at regulating yours."

"I regulate mine just fine. I just cycle faster." House looked on the nightstand for her pill bottle "Where are they?"

"I flushed them." She said sheepishly

House grumbled something under his breath and reached into his pocket and pulled out his bottle and expertly popped off the top. He poured out two pills and held one out for Charlotte to take. Reluctantly, she reached for the pill.

"There is something very perverse about this." She said before she popped the pill in her mouth. As soon as she had swallowed, she looked at him with her wide, honest eyes.

"I came to see you when you were in the hospital." She said quickly

"I know."

"I said some really nasty things." She swallowed "You were asleep. I was scared. I didn't want to wait for you to wake up to explain things."

"I heard."

"You what?" She looked at him with shock

"I heard everything you said." He said solemnly

"Everything?"

"Do we really need to rub salt in the wound?"

"I-I-" She stuttered "It never occurred to me that you heard."

"You've been too wrapped up in your own emotional turmoil to think about mine?" He laughed sardonically "You were meant to be a psychologist."

"Yeah," She said flatly "I thought I had been betrayed. It really never crossed my mind that I betrayed you."

"At least you're honest."

"Yes," She said mockingly "I'm the honest child. Seems to me, you're just a lying bastard."

"What? Me?" House looked surprised

"I was a child!" She said, suddenly angry

"Being a child suddenly means you shouldn't be held accountable for your actions?"

"No," She shook her head trying to get her thoughts straight "But the only person with the full story was you! You knew I was there. You knew that I didn't know you were awake. All the responsibility rests on your shoulders."

"Don't try and put this on me!"

"Too late! It is all on you!" She shouted "We were best friends when I was growing up. The one time you needed to step up and be the adult, you didn't do it!"

"So I failed the Daddy Test?" There was a bitterness in his voice that made Charlotte pull away

"No," She said slowly and quietly "Not at all."

"So the Adult Test. I know I must have failed that."

"You were never mature enough to be given that test." She crossed her arms and looked at House carefully

"That hurt." House said sharply

"Yeah, well so did being shut out of my dad's life for ten years because he was too stubborn to admit he's not perfect." House tried to speak, but she continued "Was that it? You kept me around as long as I held you up on a pedestal? The second I realized you were human, you threw me aside."

"If I threw you aside for thinking I was human, you wouldn't be here." He pointed out

"That is a separate issue." She held out her hand to stop him. "First, we talk about ten years ago."

"Fine." He sat upright in the bed and turned to her "I was depressed. I wanted to die. You came into that room and I heard the little girl who would want to go bike riding or hiking and all I could think about was I could never be the father that took her."

"I would have understood-"

"No you wouldn't have!" His voice rose to almost a shout, but he reigned it in "I couldn't have gone to your graduation because I was going through physical therapy. You wouldn't have understood that then. You would have been mad at me, we would have fought. I saved us from a lot of unnecessary pain."

"You can say that now because you took the easy way out!" Charlotte insisted, "Yes, we would have fought about a lot of things, but we would have been fighting. Fighting means so much more than never speaking."

"Hindsight is 20-20." House said with a shrug

"Was that you admitting you might have made the wrong decision?" She asked hopefully and he shrugged again.

"I need to know I made the right decision." House said after a few moments of silence

"I don't know." She let her lips curl into a smile "But how do you know we would have fought?" House's facial muscles didn't move an inch, but she saw a flicker of a smile pass through his eyes. "Maybe it was the right decision. My teenage years were hell. I've only been here 24 hours and we've already fought twice and I'm supposedly all grown up now."

"At least one of us is." He looked at her seriously "I've been told I'm a child."

"No!" She said with exaggerated surprise

"Now do you want to know why you're here?" House asked and Charlotte nodded her head. He leaned over the edge of the bed and picked up the photo album. He flipped to the page that he had told Wilson about. He pointed at a picture and handed the album to Charlotte.

She looked at it carefully and recognized the faded yellow wallpaper as the wallpaper in the kitchen in Michigan. They had moved into that house the spring she turned three and her father had left that Christmas. Out the window she saw green grass so she placed it before her parent's fights got bad. Sitting on the counter sat a young Charlotte, sucking on a lollipop and covered head to toe in flour and something that suspiciously looked like chocolate sauce. With her pudgy fists, she was smearing the brown goo all over a younger House's face and shirt. They were both laughing, House more so than Charlotte, who was desperately trying to master finger painting her father while keeping her lollipop in her mouth without her hands.

"We had so much fun that day." House smiled at the memory "And your mom was so mad." Charlotte laughed, imagining Sarah snapping the picture then yelling at the two of them. She would have been in tears. "You were always my favorite partner in crime."

"Did you ever actually miss me?" She asked with tears in her eyes

"Every day."


	6. Sanguine

**_This chapter is dedicated to one of my good friends who, unlike Toby, we aren't going to let her die. No one should have to go through horrible times alone._**

**Sanguine**

_Make me sanguine  
Help me genuinely  
Kill the doubt that strangles myself worth  
Paint the picture that I swore I heard_

Cameron approached the door and heard the piano playing softly. She was almost afraid to knock and disturb House. She reluctantly put her fist to the door and it opened immediately

"It's about time!" House looked shocked to see Cameron "You aren't pizza."

"I just admitted a case and I've been trying to reach you on your phone." Cameron said urgently

"It's turned off." House stepped aside and let her in. She looked around and saw it was actually Charlotte sitting on the piano bench.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Cameron." She smiled as sweetly as possible. House caught her tone and shot her a warning look. Normally he thrived off of drama, but coming from his daughter, it made him uncomfortable.

"Patient is a 32 year old male with blurred vision, low protein levels and jaundice." Cameron brushed Charlotte off with a smile "His liver is failing."

"Shock me, shock me." House grabbed the chart Cameron was holding

"He's also a chronic severe hyponatremic. His sodium levels are dangerously low." Cameron followed House as he walked around to the couch and stood there as he sat down

"Did you ask his sodium if it was confused?" House asked with a frown. "Is he an athlete?"

"No." Cameron confirmed his fear "His sodium levels shouldn't be that low with liver failure."

"Does he have seizures?" Charlotte asked from the piano bench

"What?" Cameron squinted her eyes at her

"My ex-boyfriend had seizures and was on Trileptal. It really wrecks your liver and about 6% of people who take it develop hyponatremia." She said with a shrug "I mean, chronic hyponatremia is really rare." She turned back to the piano and started fingering the keys, but made no sound.

House looked at the chart and saw that the patient had Trileptal listed as a current medication. He smirked and looked up at Cameron

"Take your patient off of Trileptal and start the treatment for hyponatremia." He handed back the file "Once you have that under control, see what's left." Cameron snapped up the file and nodded her head in consent and turned to leave. House stopped her by saying, "You're lucky my daughter was here for that differential. If you want to get me back to the hospital, the case if going to have to be more interesting."

*

When Cameron arrived back at the hospital, she went into House's office and was greeted expectantly by his team.

"Little House solved the liver problem." She threw the file on the table

"Little House?" Thirteen asked with an amused tone

"She made a connection between hyponatremia and Trileptal. I think she even did it before House."

"That's what's causing the liver failure?" Kutner looked shocked "It only happens in less than 10% of patients taking it."

"6%." Cameron corrected "And her ex-boyfriend was one of them."

"What are the chances?" Taub said with wonder

"Cameron," Foreman spoke up from the back of the room "Did you really think liver failure and hyponatremia would bring House back in? He's only been gone four days. Give him his full two weeks." Cameron looked at him with a bitter glare

"So now that House isn't here, is this where we're all meeting?" Chase walked into the office

"I've never felt so free!" Kutner smiled "Or lost."

"It has been pretty boring." Thirteen nodded

"Why is no one treating this patient?" Cameron held up the charts and looked at the lounging doctors

"He's yours I thought." Taub looked confused.

Cameron huffed and turned on her heels. Rolling his eyes, Chase ran after her.

"Allison!" He called "Allison! Stop!" She stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around. "What's wrong with you?"

"Does anyone else notice what's going on?" Chase shook his head slowly "House doesn't care about answers anymore. He's too busy playing Daddy to a someone he hasn't seen in ten years. He's going to let patients die while he plays duets on the piano and eats pizza all day."

"If the case was severe enough, he'd come in." Chase tried to reassure her

"You didn't see him!" Cameron insisted "He's not House."

"You're jealous!" Chase said with a hint of laughter.

"No I'm not." She spat out

"Yes, you are." He let himself laugh "You're used to being House's golden child and you can't accept that you're not the only one." Cameron seemed genuinely hurt by his comment, so he felt he should explain. "Why do you think House hates Christmas so much? Because Charlotte used to spend every Christmas with him. She used to spend his birthday with him, too. Everything wrong with House can be traced back to Charlotte." He stopped and softened his tone. "That House you saw, that's the real House. He's still who he's always been, but now the something that was missing is now back in place."

"I like how you've become the expert on House." She snipped quickly

"I'd liken myself as an expert in parental relationships." He added dryly, "You aren't going to lose House."

"No, but you gained a House."

"I don't think I appreciate where this conversation is going."

"Everything has just changed so much I don't know who I am and where I'm going."

"Things are going to get better." Chase promised

"How do you know?" Cameron crossed her arms and challenged him

"I don't." He admitted "But I have faith that it will."

*

Wilson had received a call from Charlotte begging him to take House out for an evening "At first," she said over the phone "He refused to stay home. Now he's always breathing down my neck! Asking questions, making bad jokes, generally just being annoying." After a week of living with House, Charlotte said she was starting to miss the last ten years.

When Wilson arrived at House's apartment, Charlotte opened the door with a big smile on her face

"Charlotte!" Wilson was shocked to see her "You're up! Aren't you supposed to be resting?"

"I feel phenomenal. Really." She let him in "Dad, look who it is," She shouted into the apartment "Your old buddy Wilson!"

"Charlotte?" Wilson asked with an amused grin

"He's cooking, Wilson." She leaned in a whispered "Cooking. He doesn't cook."

Wilson laughed at the dismal expression on Charlotte's face. He looked past her into the kitchen and House was actually standing at the stove, stirring something that smelled like stir fry.

"Wilson!" House greeted as Wilson walked towards the kitchen "Want to join us for dinner?"

Wilson turned around and looked at Charlotte who was hiding around the corner shaking her head

"Actually, I was thinking that maybe we could go out and grab a drink." Wilson turned back to House

"Are you paying?" House looked behind Wilson suspiciously

"Well," Wilson shrugged and Charlotte came around the corner

"Dad," She said sweetly "I think you should go out with Wilson tonight. I mean, I'm really tired." She accentuated her statement with a yawn

House didn't hide his suspicion as he looked from Charlotte to Wilson then back again. When they thought he was going to protest, he simply shrugged and looked at the stir-fry.

"It's all yours," he said looking at Charlotte "We'll be drinking our calories tonight."

*

Wilson slid back onto the bar stool after returning from the restroom. House held his drink in one hand and was slowly swirling it around

"She called you to take me out, didn't she." He said knowingly

"She's just concerned." Wilson explained "She doesn't think it's healthy that you don't get out."

"Healthy, huh?" House put his drink down and looked at Wilson "It seems rather unhealthy that the head of Rehab Services would suggest to an addict that he goes out for a drink."

"I think she's turned a blind eye to the addict part. She just wanted Dad to go out for a drink." Wilson smirk "True devotion makes us do crazy things."

House regarded Wilson for a moment, then turned back to his drink. They sat there in silence for a few minutes until House cleared his throat.

"You know she flushed her Vicodin?" House looked at Wilson from the corner of his eyes. "She didn't say why, but I know it's because she didn't want me to have them."

"Are you rethinking your need for Vicodin?" Wilson asked astonished

"No," House said forcefully. He paused and looked at Wilson thoughtfully "But I think if she had been around, it never would have started."

"Why did you keep her a secret?"

"Because you would have been more annoying if you had known."

Wilson accepted that as an answer. From House, that was the best answer he would probably get for a while.

*

House hung up the phone in the kitchen and walked down the hall into his bedroom and saw Charlotte sprawled out across the bed still asleep. Quietly, he crept around to the other side of the bed and picked up one of the unused pillows. He slowly raised it above his head and brought it down forcefully on Charlotte's head.

"Fuck!" She awoke disoriented with a scream

"Rise and shine!" House put the pillow back down

"I hate you." She rolled over and put the pillow over her head to block him out

"How are you feeling?" He asked brightly

"My head hurts." Came the muffled reply

"Maybe it's because you're depriving your head of much needed oxygen."

"Maybe." She pulled the pillow off and looked up at him "You're bored. Go to work."

"I'm being paid to not be there," House fell onto the half of the bed Charlotte wasn't occupying "I'm so relaxed, it's disturbing."

"Do you have any perception of personal space?" Charlotte looked at him as he spread out on the bed and she was forced to one side. House shook his head. "Ok. Just checking."

"I just got off the phone with your mother." House said after a minute "Damn it, there goes that relaxed feeling."

"You're preaching to the choir." Charlotte laughed. "What did she want."

"Just checking in on you. Making sure I was feeding you more than just ice cream and cookies. Checking to see you were brushing your teeth. The usual." He shrugged "Oh, and reminding me that I have to have you ready to move into your new house by the end of the month." He rolled his head to look at Charlotte "We apparently have to go furniture shopping."

"I have all my furniture from my apartment in D.C." Charlotte looked confused

"She said you'd say that and I was told to tell you a studio apartment's furniture won't come close to furnishing a three bedroom house."

"You're sounding eerily like my mother." Charlotte smiled, "And is she paying for the new furniture?"

"I don't think so. I heard her mutter something under her breath that sounded vaguely like "I've got the bastard where I want him now" or something." House shrugged

"It's like a Bride Price. But instead of the groom paying the bride's family in cattle, the dad is paying the mom with furniture." Charlotte beamed at her analogy. "It's a Daughter Price."

"And if I refuse to pay the Daughter Price?" House eyed her warily

"Then the daughter will be entertaining her guests around the dining room table made of cardboard boxes."

"It's nice to see you're going green." He flinched as her arm flung across the bed and struck him on the chest. "Your mother and Cuddy have worked something out. Apparently, you're getting a housing allowance to relocate which includes furniture."

"You're off the hook?"

"I would have bought you furniture if you needed it." House defended himself. Charlotte took her time in responding.

"I can't figure out who you blame more. Me or you." Charlotte sat up in bed and looked at House thoughtfully. "At first, I thought you blamed me. But the more I think about it, I think you blame yourself." House looked up at Charlotte passively and waited for her to continue. "Maybe it's a bit of both. You've blamed me for so long that you finally realized blaming me was stupid and pointless so you started blaming yourself instead. You need to blame someone for the pain because you really enjoy being a masochistic bastard."

"I can blame Stacy." House pointed out

"No," Charlotte shook her head "You surpassed the pain Stacy is responsible for a long time ago. This pain goes deeper. It's the pain of lost years and missed chances; of knowing you've made huge mistakes in your life and not knowing how to fix them. This pain is a puzzle you can't figure out. Every aversive situation you have put yourself in for the past 50 years has created a clog in your cognition." She explained, "Like when I'm taking a shower and a few strands of hair fall out. If I don't clean out the drain right away, it all adds up and within a week, I'm standing in a foot of water."

"So I have a karmic clog?" He asked with a hint of sarcasm

"Something like that." She smiled at him. "You're such a good man. But you're also a jerk."

"Little of this, little of that…" House shrugged "We can't all be winners." He looked at Charlotte seriously and said, "Should I call a plumber?"

"I think it's too late." She laughed "Either you just accept the flood and learn how to swim or you get new pipes."

"Acceptance is cheaper."

*

Charlotte hadn't even been back to work when one of the nurses from Detox came running down to Cuddy's office.

"She's refusing to feed them!" The nurse cried "She's telling them if they want to eat, they have to figure it out themselves!"

After assuring the nurse that Dr. Carrington's methods were indeed approved by review boards and nothing bad was going to happen to the patients, the nurse left still clearly uneasy with Charlotte's barbaric methods.

Wilson happened to be in Cuddy's office when the nurse had come in and he was glad he stuck around for it.

"I think you might be the only administrator with the balls to hire two Dr. Houses." He said with a laugh

"Lucky for me one of them came with her own insurance plan." Lisa said sardonically as she flipped through papers to pull out Charlotte's request for food to be placed in the cabinets and handed it to Wilson. "This House at least covers her own ass."

"So she's stocking the kitchen with food and telling them to make meals for themselves?" He laughed as he looked over what she had put in the kitchen. All simple ingredients to make simple food. "That's brilliant."

"She gave the review board a whole speech on how it's important that we stop treating addicts like babies who have lost all ability to function and start demanding things from them." Cuddy laughed at the memory of the review board's shocked reaction to the cute little blonde's callousness. "Charlotte said: "There are more than 12 steps to recovery. My latest estimate is at least 612."

"So she's recreating the real world in rehab?" Cuddy nodded. "I love the way she works through problems."

"Reminds you of someone you know, right?" Cuddy laughed as Wilson nodded in surprise. "Yeah, she's pretty great."

"It's nice having House back." Wilson said after a moment, "I really think his team missed him."

"Have you noticed a change in him?" Cuddy leaned her elbows on her desk and looked at Wilson. "Doesn't he seem…" she struggled to find the word

"Refreshed?" Wilson provided

"Yes, refreshed." Cuddy agreed "He's back to who he was a few years ago. He's been tired lately, but he's sharper now."

"Do you think we have Charlotte to thank for this?" He asked

"I don't know." Cuddy leaned back in her chair "But I know she was a wake up call."

"He's still as arrogant and utterly genius as ever."

"So is she." Cuddy laughed "I think this is a good thing. They can keep each other in check and let everyone else do their jobs."

*

It was move in day. Sarah had come up for the weekend to help, bringing with her Pavlov, Charlotte's dog. Cuddy, Chase and Wilson were there, too, along with a handful of professional movers. Charlotte and House sat on the front porch swing with Pavlov at their feet, directing the traffic.

"Aren't you going to help?" Cuddy came by them, carrying a rather large box.

"Bum leg." House used his cane to point to his leg "Bum…" He pointed to Charlotte's pelvis "Baby maker."

Charlotte punched him in the arm and laughed

"Mom's doing all the work for me." She shrugged and looked in the open door where Sarah was about to yell at the movers for almost running the couch into the door frame. "I'm pretty much useless at this point."

Chase came walking up the driveway carrying a box and House shouted out urgently,

"Be careful with that box!"

Chase stopped and looked at Charlotte in a panic.

"Why? What's in the box?" He asked curiously

"Shoes." Charlotte laughed "He's just being a jerk."

"It's so much fun." House pouted as Chase shook his head and continued into the house. At that moment, his pager went off and he looked at it reluctantly. "I have to go." He said to Charlotte almost regretfully.

"You go. Have fun." She waved him away. "Don't kill anyone."

House grabbed his cane and with a nod, he made his way down the driveway. When he passed the movers, he stopped to say something, then continued on his way. Charlotte chuckled to herself as the movers stopped where they were and looked at each other with confused expressions.

Cuddy walked out of the house and noticed Charlotte sitting by herself on the swing. She joined Charlotte and watched as the movers brought in her bed trailed by Sarah, Chase and Wilson carrying odds and ends. Cuddy laughed to herself

"You're right. This is fun."

"You know what I can't figure out?" Charlotte suddenly turned to Cuddy "Is why he accepted my diagnosis so easily. Why didn't he try and prove there was something else wrong with me when I had that ovarian cyst explode. There's a million things it could have been. Why did he just accept it?"

"He didn't." Cuddy said slowly, not sure she should be sharing. "He spent the three days you were sedated running blood tests and doing all sorts of work ups. If you hadn't had staples in your pelvis, there would have been MRIs and more scans." She smiled a little "He wasn't going to accept any diagnosis but his own."

"In some strange way, that makes me feel better."

"What? Knowing that House was there double checking your diagnosis?"

"No, the diagnosis has been double and triple checked." She slowly shook her head "He wasn't willing to let me be sick."

"When you first came home from the hospital after you were born," Cuddy started slowly swinging the swing "You were jaundiced which is fairly normal in babies. But House was convinced it was because of infection or a thyroid disorder." Charlotte started to laugh "He didn't leave your side for days. Nothing your mother and I could say would tear him away. It was borderline obsession. Then one day he woke up and you were no longer yellow."

"It was a miracle." Charlotte laughed

"Then there was that other time, when you were two…" Cuddy laughed at the memory "And you refused to eat anything but carrots." Charlotte shook her head, not remembering. "For three months we all tried to get something other than carrots into your stomach, but you wouldn't have it. You turned bright orange because you had too much vitamin A." She wiped away the tears of laughter "I think you single handedly caused the biggest crisis in the Carrington-House household in the four years they were living together."

"I turned orange?" Charlotte asked in astonishment

"He wouldn't have said this, but I think he was so happy that you weren't actually sick. I think he might have died if something had happened to you." Cuddy smiled at Charlotte "So he doesn't just accept things when it comes to you. But he puts on a good front." Then she added dryly, "Like you."

"What?" Charlotte looked surprised

"You say you're doing great, but you're hiding something." Cuddy looked at Charlotte carefully. "Something is still wrong, but until you're ready to face it, we're here for you." She looked out to the driveway, where Wilson and Chase were reaching into the trunk of Sarah's car, pulling out boxes. "They're here for you. Your dad is here for you. And I happen to live just down the street." She patted Charlotte's knee and stood up. "I'm going to help them finish up." She started down the front steps

"Lisa," Charlotte stopped her. "Thank you."

Cuddy smiled at Charlotte tenderly and then continued on her way down the driveway.

*

It was late in the night and everyone had left Charlotte alone in her new house. An hour later, Chase had returned with a bottle of champagne and a big smile on his face. "I thought we should celebrate." He said almost sheepishly.

They had curled up on Charlotte's new couch with Pavlov nestled between them. Boxes still lined all the walls, but the main furniture was in place. They talked for hours about everything they could think of. As they finished the bottle of champagne, Charlotte yawned.

"You tired?" Chase asked concerned

"A little. It's been a long day." Charlotte admitted with a laugh

"It was a fun day, though."

"Yeah," She smiled "I guess it was." She put her glass down and looked at Pavlov and stroked his head. "I think he likes you."

"You were right about him," Chase smiled as the dog shifted to have his belly rubbed "He is sort of irresistible." This time it was Chase who yawned.

"I think this is a sign that the day should end." Charlotte laughed as she stretched out her legs which had been tucked under her

"I'll get these washed then get on my way." Chase picked up the glasses and started walking towards the kitchen.

"No.' She darted in front of him "My new house. My new kitchen."

Chase followed Charlotte into the kitchen with the champagne glasses. She stood at the sink and turned on the water and held out her hands, waiting for Chase to pass the glasses to her.

"Cameron said you solved a case." Chase said as he held the glasses close to his body

"The hyponatremic? It was a guess." She shrugged him off

"She said it was an ex-boyfriend." Chase jumped back a little as she roughly grabbed the glasses from his hands

"Look at me!" She said excited "Washing my first dishes in my new sink!"

"Do you want to talk about it?" Chase asked cautiously

"If I wanted to talk about it, I wouldn't have gotten over excited about washing dishes." She didn't look at Chase as she sighed. After a moment, she put down the sponge and looked up at Chase, who was now leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. "You're not going to let it go?"

"Nope." He shook his head "Tell me the whole story."

"His name was Toby." She put the glasses in the rack and grabbed a dish towel and started wringing it in her hands. "When he was 12, he got into a pretty bad car accident. It messed up his brain or something. I don't really know. But he started having seizures. They tried every seizure medication under the sun, but nothing worked. When he was a senior in high school, they put him on Trileptal. It caused the hyponatremia and started to wreck his liver. They wanted to take him off it, but he wouldn't let them," She chuckled a little, "Toby was such an arrogant asshole. He was the guy that woke up every Saturday morning at 4am to go hiking for ten miles just because he could. He said he'd rather die tomorrow with no seizures than live another ten years with seizures." She dropped the towel on counter and crossed her arms across her chest protectively. "We broke up when I moved to England. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to save the world. I had no direction, I just knew what I was good at. We were at two different points in our lives. I called him when I graduated and when I expected him to congratulate me, he told me he was dying. Because of the treatments, the vasopressin cells in his liver and lungs had turned cancerous." She paused, waiting for Chase to say something, but he didn't so she continued. "I had my pick of school to go to for my doctorate. UCLA was offering me a full ride, so was Johns Hopkins. I chose NYU because that's where Toby and his doctors were." She looked up at the ceiling to fight back tears. "I scheduled my classes around his treatments. I took him to every single one. He came to my graduation in a wheel chair and during the hour long ceremony, he had to be wheeled out three times to go throw up in the bathroom." Tears started flowing, but she didn't move to wipe them away. Chase instinctively took a step forward, but stopped when she continued. "I was there when he died a month later. His last words to me were, "Thank your father for me. If you had stayed with him, you wouldn't have stayed with me." He knew I wasn't there out of love, or even friendship, it was guilt. Guilt that ate at me everyday. I realize now he was right. If had not been so selfish at 15, I would have been at 23. Staying with Toby was, in my mind, fixing the fact that I didn't stay with my dad."

"Your father didn't die." Chase pointed out softly

"No, but I thought he would." She laughed softly "And sometimes it felt like he did." She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. "So Cameron said hyponatremia and liver failure and I thought of Toby. It was no big medical breakthrough, it was fear that it would happen to someone else."

"They took him off the Trileptal. Once they did that, his liver started regenerating and they started treating the seizures." Chase closed the gap between them and put his hands on her shoulders. "You saved a man's life."

"But someone had to die in the first place to make saving another man's life possible. Doesn't it get old?" She asked as she pulled away and walked to the other end of the kitchen

"No death is worthless. And you learn something from every one."

"I learned I'm a selfish bastard." She collapsed on to a chair

"No," Chase followed her to the chair and knelt down in front of it. "You said you took him to every treatment. He stayed around for your graduation. He was there because you cared enough to help him."

"It was guilt."

"What does it matter what your motivation was? You were there. He wasn't alone." He grabbed her hands and noticed she was trembling, fighting back tears. "This time, you were able to make the connection between the symptoms before it got too late. That's why people die. That's why we learn from our mistakes."

"Do you think I made a mistake?"

"Whatever it was, I think you learned from it." Chase looked into Charlotte's eyes "And I don't think you'll ever let anyone be sick alone again."

*

"I have something for you." Charlotte reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a wrapped box. She and House were sitting in the guest bedroom of her new house, trying to unpack.

"Christmas paper?" He took the box and inspected it.

"It's about eight years late." She shrugged "Must have gotten lost in the mail."

He smiled as he ripped open the paper like a little boy. He opened the box and pulled out a gray t-shirt with the words "Michigan Dad" written across the front in big blue and yellow letters. He held it up and looked at it for a minute.

"I just wanted you to be proud of me," She tried to explain but he put down the shirt and pulled her into a hug that practically cut off her airway.

"I was." He said in a low voice, "I am."

After letting House crush her for a few minutes, Charlotte weaseled her way out of his embrace and sat back on the bed then blurted out,

"I made a mistake. I should have stayed and waited for you to wake up. I should have talked to you. But I have carried that guilt around for long enough. I'm not sorry anymore."

"Neither am I." Charlotte looked at House incredulously "You did what you had to do. I respect that."

"That's it? You respect me." Charlotte looked amazed

"It's not rational to be mad at you for doing what I taught you to do." He laughed "I have been told I have an unquenchable need to find out how something happens. I'm good at my job because I become so obsessed that nothing else exists until I find the "how". You are good at your job because you were obsessed with your guilt. You were looking for the reason "why"."

"But I'm not obsessed with my guilt! Not anymore, at least."

"No, but you're still looking for the reason why. Without guilt, the questions just become different."

"So what are my new questions?"

"Not my job." He shrugged "I focus on the answers."

Charlotte narrowed her eyes and him, trying to figure out what he meant and he simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders then turned his attention back to unpacking.


	7. Backwards With Time

So this is it. The end. Well, sort of. I don't know about any of you, but I've fallen in love with Charlotte and I can never really be finished. Two more stories are in the works and I'm really proud of them thus far, so please R&R and let me know what you think!

* * *

**Backwards With Time**

_Folk always told me that my heart would grow  
The older the man, yeah, the stronger the stone  
Am I losing my mind?  
Am I growing backwards with time?_

"Charlotte!" Cuddy slid into the elevator as the doors were closing "We need to talk."

"I'm all ears." Charlotte laughed

"I was actually wondering if we could talk in your office." Cuddy looked over her shoulder at the other people riding the elevator.

"Um," Charlotte followed her eyes "Sure."

"Do you have all your charts up to date?" Cuddy asked in a tone that meant business

"Yeah, for the most part." Charlotte nodded "I'm waiting on Detox to update their system and get me the new client information."

"Good." Cuddy nodded "Don't let them slip."

"Don't worry." She laughed "I've been cracking the whip up there."

The elevator doors opened and Cuddy and Charlotte let people pass by as they slipped to the back. They rode in silence until they got to rehab and exited the elevator. They passed through the common room and greeted the patients as they went.

"What's up?" Charlotte asked as they finally got to her office and closed the door.

"He knows." Cuddy said suddenly

"He couldn't possibly know. He thinks we're going to The Black Cat on Saturday because there's going to be a jazz band I think he'd enjoy."

"No, he knows I'm in on it." Cuddy repeated

"He doesn't know anything, he's just trying to jerk you around so you'll confess something." Charlotte shook her head "He's acting on instinct and there's nothing there."

"He knows we're not going to let 50 pass by quietly." Cuddy looked out the window

"But he's secretly hoping we will," Charlotte pointed out "Which is why he's not going to push it."

"You really think he's hoping we'd forget?" Cuddy looked uncertain

"You should have seen his face when I asked what he was doing Saturday." She laughed "I thought he was going to have a heart attack!"

*  
"Hey, Dr. Wilson!"

Wilson slowly turned around and saw Charlotte chasing him down the hall

"Why do I feel like there should be a slingshot pointed at my head?"

Charlotte smiled at him innocently. "Not my weapon of choice. Plus, I don't look too good in red overalls."

"What can I do you out of, Charlotte?" He asked with a smile and continued walking down the hall

"What are you doing Saturday night?" She asked softly

"The rumor I heard is that I'm going to House's public hanging." He said with a grin on his face

"It's just a surprise party." Charlotte defended "And who told you?"

"Cuddy." He looked at Charlotte skeptically "You really haven't learned she can't keep a secret, have you."

"There's been a few close calls, but I think she's doing very nicely this time around."

"House has no clue." Wilson confirmed Charlotte's suspicions. "I think he's hoping we'll forget."

"He would tell you if he knew?"

"No," Wilson admitted, "But he'd get peskier than usual. When there's a secret to be found out, he turns into a little fruit fly."

"A fruit fly at a bar…" She bit her lip "I like it. It fits."

*

"Hey, stranger." Chase knocked on Charlotte's open office door

"Hi!" Charlotte looked up and smiled "Come in!"

"I was wondering," Chase walked around her desk and came up beside her "If you wanted to grab some dinner tonight."

"Oh," She scrunched her face up "I can't. I have plans."

"I refuse to believe you are two-timing me." Chase said with a lingering smile

"Not at all. You can join me, if you want." She laughed "I know this great little place, not too far from here."

"Is the food good?" he asked playfully

"The best food this side of the hospital cafeteria." She said slyly

"Just promise me you're not cooking." Chase laughed. He had tasted Charlotte's cooking and it was not something he was looking forward to trying again.

"Nope. It's not in the treatment plans." She grinned "Spaghetti night. Be up here by 6 for the big show."

"I wouldn't miss it." When Chase reached the door, he turned around as if he was about to say something, then he changed his mind and left the office.

*

Chase arrived at Charlotte's office at 6:05 pm and stopped in the doorway. Charlotte was sitting at her desk, bent over some paper work. She was holding her chin in her left hand and writing furiously with her right. Her golden hair was thrown up into a messy ponytail sitting on the very top of her head and under the desk, Chase could see the bottoms of jeans peaking out with tips of sneakers tapping mindlessly as she continued to write. When Chase knocked on the door, she looked up suddenly with an annoyed expression on her face, one he had seen in House the Elder many times.

"It's 6." He offered weakly, not sure if he had really offended her

"Oh crap." Charlotte looked down at her papers and shuffled them around. Finally, she gave up and threw her pen on the desk. "I give up."

"Do you need any help with anything?" Chase asked, coming further into the office

"Not unless you want to spend all night filling out discharge reports and reading the Detox intakes." She laughed and pushed her chair away from her desk and stood up. "It's going to take all night. I'm such a procrastinator."

"If that's your worst quality, I'd consider yourself lucky." He responded with a smile

"I do. Some days." She picked up her suit jacket sitting on the sofa and put it on. "Come on. This is the hard part of my job." She motioned him out the door and they walked into the common area. She spotted an empty couch across the room and headed for it. With a theatrical swoon, she collapsed on the couch and patted to the empty seat next to her for Chase to join her.

"The hard part?" He laughed as he joined her

"Hey, it's tough waiting around for someone to feed you." Charlotte said flippantly as one of the patients approached her.

"Hey, Dr. Carrington, what's for dinner tonight?" a large woman with red hair and a red face approached Charlotte and Chase

"I think we've got enough ingredients for spaghetti, Leona." She leaned forward and looked around Chase to the empty kitchen "But it looks like we're going to be waiting a while. No one has started yet."

"Marvin hasn't come out of his room all day." Leona said, as if that explained why no one was cooking. To Charlotte, it did.

"Marvin isn't going to be here next week when you want to eat, Leona." She reminded. Leona shrugged and walked away.

"We're just going to sit here and wait till someone cooks?" Chase looked appalled.

"Food is one of the most powerful motivators." Charlotte spoke softly and eyed the rest of the common room. "I asked Marvin not to cook today. I wanted to see how long it took before they realized that he wasn't coming and that they would have to do it for themselves if they wanted to eat."

"So we just sit here."

"That's the brilliant plan."

"That's ridiculous." Chase shook his head

"It works."

After twenty minutes of casual conversation between Charlotte and Chase, Charlotte nodded her head towards the kitchen where a group of patients had gathered

"It's going to be a good meal. Kip is in there. So is Maureen. Both excellent cooks." She said with a smile

"I guess they got hungry." He laughed as he turned his head to look at the group. "I can't believe it actually works."

"That's what rehabs all about. We give them the tools and they do the work." Charlotte said with pride

"Hey C.H.!" A large black man waved from the other side of the room

"C.H.?" Chase looked at her with a smile

"He knew me back before I dropped the House." Charlotte explained as she waved back "What's up, Marvin?"

"I need more paper, C.H." Marvin walked up to Charlotte

"I can get you some." Charlotte laughed

"No, I want that pretty yellow paper you gave me last time." He explained "I saw that paper and the ideas just started flowing."

"I don't think it was the paper, Marvin."

"I think it was, C.H. I really do."

"Ok, I'll see what I can do." Charlotte laughed again "I'll bring it by after dinner." Marvin turned and walked back across the common room and Charlotte looked at Chase "He's writing his memoirs." She explained

"On pretty yellow paper." Chase nodded

"Marvin is a really great guy." She looked across the room where Marvin was now talking energetically to other patients. "He came to the Detox facility where I was working in New York because the homeless shelters wouldn't take him in when he was drunk."

"He sounds like a real winner." Chase said sarcastically and Charlotte shot him a dirty look

"You know, he used to be a speech writer for Ronald Reagan."

"And now he's a drunk."

"Recovering." Charlotte corrected "I think he has a beautiful story showing how far someone can fall."

"He's been recovering for a while, I take it."

"You're always recovering. Addiction is different than disease in the sense that you can never be fully healed. The damage is done and there's no miracle drug that will fix the past." She sighed "When we say he's Bipolar, we can control that. If he had a clogged artery, we would unclog it. When we say he's an alcoholic, all we can say is that we'll help."

"You like helping."

"Don't you?"

"How did you manage to roll condescending, bitter, bitchy and encouraging into two little words?" Chase wondered out loud.

Across the room, they saw a patient jump out of her chair and start running towards her room. Charlotte stood up as a nurse took off running after her and looked down at Chase. "I'll be right back." And she took off after the patient and nurse.

"Hey," Marvin came up to Chase and stood beside the couch "Is it true C.H.'s dad is the crazy doctor downstairs?"

"I wouldn't call him crazy…" Chase looked around nervously "Eccentric, maybe."

"The nurses talk." Marvin explained as he sat on the other end of the sofa "They say he does illegal stuff all the time and they think C.H. is going to snap on us one day."

"Do you think she will?"

"Nah," He shook his head "C.H. is the best doctor in the world. Not many doctors will call a patient out for being an idiot."

"I can think of at least one other."

"She's brutal and she's beautiful. She's a deadly combination." Chase eyed Marvin suspiciously, checking for signs of infatuation, but just saw admiration in Marvin's eyes. "So no," Marvin continued "I don't think she's going to go crazy. I think she's already crazy. I mean, she spends her days with dirty addicts."

"No need to be hard on yourself, Marvin!" Charlotte snuck up behind them on the couch "You're not dirty, you just smell a little."

"Dude, C.H., you scared the crap out of me!" Marvin jumped around and saw Charlotte standing behind the couch with a big smile on her face.

"That will teach you to talk about people when they aren't here to defend themselves." She hopped over the back of the sofa and landed softly between Marvin and Chase.

"He was just asking about House." Chase informed her

"Marvin," Charlotte turned to him and smiled gently "I may have vilified him back when we were in New York, but I was angry. I said some bad thing that I shouldn't have said and I regret them."

"But you said-" Marvin was acting like a little child and Charlotte cut him off with her finger to her lips, just like she would a little child

"I bet you've said some stupid things in your life." Marvin nodded "Would you take them back if the situation was different?" He nodded again. "So would I."

"But what-"

"It may be nothing, Marvin." She patted his leg "If you want to go write some before dinner, go ask Nurse Jessica to get you some yellow paper from the storage closet. Tell her I sent you."

With that, Marvin nodded and got off the couch to go find Nurse Jessica. When he left, Charlotte sighed and leaned back on the couch and let her head fall backwards to rest on the back of the couch.

"Speech writer for Ronald Reagan, eh?" Chase asked smugly. Charlotte rolled her head to the side and looked at Chase, her faces now inches away from his.

"He's going through a rough patch." She said softly then closed her eyes. "He's not what he used to be."

"Why was he asking about House?" Chase asked and Charlotte's eyes flew open.

"He hasn't been feeling well. The nurses scared him, saying if he got worse, they would have to send him down to House to figure out what was wrong. They talk." She shrugged.

"What's wrong."

"I don't know, I think he needs some blood work done. Maybe some other tests run."

"I can do that for you."

"No, I need it done under the table." She said as she pushed her palms into her temples

"I can do it under the table."

"I'm sure you can." Charlotte said with a smirk "But I had a certain doctor in mind."

*

Charlotte swept in to House's office and leaned on the desk.

"I'm picking you up at 6 on Saturday." She informed him

"So early?"

"6. We have dinner. We have drinks. We enjoy the band. We go home." She said sharply "I'm old and I need rest. I have to be back at the hospital for morning meetings."

"On a Sunday?" House eyed her suspiciously

"Well you know," She rolled her eyes "Apparently I'm a big deal and people can't function without my approval."

"What if I say no?"

"Then I go to the bar by myself to enjoy the band by myself and have a few drinks by myself and…" She shrugged, not knowing how to finish

"Look like an alcoholic loser… by yourself."

"In a nutshell."

"Okay." He nodded "6."

"You're the best daddy in the world." She winked and stood up straight

"You didn't invite Chase or anyone, did you?" He asked cautiously as she turned to leave

"Please," Charlotte sighed "My relationship with Chase stops once we leave the bedroom." She saw her father cringe and she laughed "Daddy! I'm kidding! We're not sleeping together!"

"Don't ever joke like that again." He warned.

"You should have seen the look on your face…" She laughed, then added, "It almost made me want to sleep with Chase just so I could see it more often."

"Get out." House pointed towards the door.

"Daddy," she sighed "Don't tell me you're losing your sense of humor in your old age."

"Out." He repeated and Charlotte suppressed a giggle

"Saturday at 6!" She reminded as she closed the door behind her

*

"Dr. Cameron?" Charlotte approached him from behind as she was standing at the counter doing paperwork. She turned around and nodded her head in recognition. "I have a favor to ask."

"Shoot." Cameron turned back around when Charlotte reached her side

"I have a client upstairs who is Bipolar I. He's going through a manic episode right now, but his meds aren't working and this is unlike any manic episode I've ever seen." She said in a hushed tone.

"And what do you want me to do about it?" Cameron looked at her cautiously, as if it were dangerous to work with Charlotte Carrington.

"I can't order blood work to be done." She said as if she were shocked Cameron had asked. "I worked with him when I was at NYU and I've seen him in manic episodes and this one is not normal." She sighed when Cameron looked away "Look, there's something seriously wrong with him. I know it."

"How do you know?"

"I just know." She insisted. "He'll be able to check himself out tomorrow and we need to find a reason to make him stay." Cameron scoffed at her insistence. "What?"

"You really are a House." Charlotte gave Cameron a questioning look and she continued "You'll do anything to get your way."

"No!" Charlotte put her hand on Cameron's arm to stop her from walking away. She looked down at it, but Charlotte didn't remove it. "I'm being honest. I'm not trying to find a way to make him stay because I think he should stay, I'm trying to find a way because I seriously think something is wrong."

"Go to Foreman. Or your father." She spat out

"I can't." Charlotte pulled her hand away once she realized Cameron would stay. "The board won't let House treat any of my clients if they came directly from me. Some nepotism rule they decided to pass," She shrugged "However, they never said you couldn't treat my clients... One of the best trained doctors in the hospital…"

"And if I can't figure it out, I can take it to House." Cameron nodded her head in understanding "What if I said no."

"Please, just run his blood work. Do scans or anything else. I promise something will be there." Cameron looked at her suspiciously "I know because he's not himself right now."

"He's having a manic episode." Cameron reminded "Is he going through withdrawal?"

"No, he went through it while in Detox." Then she added for emphasis, "Weeks ago."

"He's Bipolar. Manic episodes aren't necessarily a symptom of anything else." Cameron reminded

"Yes, but he's not having a normal one. Even in his mania, he's mind-numbingly predictable." Charlotte held out the chart she had been holding and finished, "Everyone is allowed a second chance. Sometimes we give them a third and a fourth, but no one should have to suffer alone."

With that, she turned around and left leaving Cameron wondering if she was talking about her patient or herself.

*

Cuddy looked up as she heard a soft tap on the door and saw a head of soft blonde curls and a big smile poke through the open door

"Hey Lisa," Charlotte stepped in "Is this a bad time?"

"Give me a minute." She said as she was rustling papers. "Sit down."

Charlotte came and sat down and waited while Cuddy finished up some paper work. When she was finished, Cuddy leaned over and picked a file up off of the corner of her desk and handed it across to Charlotte.

"Wilson stopped by and was wondering if you could do him a favor." Cuddy explained as Charlotte took the chart. "He has a patient who is having a hard time adjusting. She doesn't need a psych consult or anything, just someone to talk to."

"She's six." Charlotte looked at the chart "And she's dying."

"Her dad's not around. Her mom works full time to pay the medical bills so she spends her days at the hospital alone."

"What about the Family Medical Leave Act?" Charlotte looked upset

"It's great in theory." Cuddy shrugged "12 weeks of unpaid leave doesn't really help this family."

"The poor mom has to choose what she wants to be there in 12 weeks. Her job or her daughter." Charlotte shook her head. "Why not send a candy striper or someone over there?"

"I think you'd be good with her." Cuddy smiled "Just think about it."

"I will." Charlotte closed the chart and sat forward. "Is it too soon to put in a work order?"

"What did you do." Cuddy looked nervous

"Nothing's broken." Charlotte shook her head "It's just the name on my door needs to be fixed."

"I can't believe it! They always spell the names wrong and they never come by and double check." Cuddy grabbed her phone book and started flipping through the pages "I am never hiring them again."

"No, Lisa." Charlotte laughed "It's spelled right, but part of it's missing." Cuddy stopped and looked at Charlotte tenderly. "I mean, they way I figure it, everyone already knows so what's the point in trying to pretend I'm not who I am?"

"Charlotte," Cuddy said softly "Have you told House?"

"Not yet. I guess it's like a birthday present." She shrugged "I think he'll be happy about it. He won't admit to it, but I think it kind of bugs him that I've ignored him for so long." She sighed "Part that sucks is that I'm going to have to go through the grant board and get all this paperwork changed."

Cuddy was giving her a look that was filled with so much pride that Charlotte started laughing. She kept laughing until she started crying. At that moment, the door flew open and House was standing in the doorway

"The patients can hear you in the clinic and it's scaring them away. Thank you." He looked from Cuddy to Charlotte. Both in tears, but each had a different expression on her face. Cuddy stood up from behind her desk and practically ran around to House and wrapped her arms around him. He looked over her head at Charlotte and looked at her in fear. "You aren't pregnant or anything, are you?"

Charlotte started to laugh more as Cuddy pulled away and joined in the laughter, leaving House standing there, shifting his gaze from one woman to the next, utterly confused.

*

House tentatively made his way across the common room on the Rehab floor. The place had changed a lot since Charlotte took over, but it still made him nervous. He couldn't help but look over his shoulder, expecting someone to jump out at him.

He safely reached Charlotte's office, he looked in the window and saw no one was inside. Deciding it would be safer to wait in her office, he pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.

House stopped and looked at the bookshelf. _The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil._ Phillip Zimbardo? Really? _Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama._ House smirked a little. _A Reader's Guide to Shakespeare._ Ah, there was the Charlotte he remembered. _The Devil's Dictionary. _Ambrose Bierce. He pulled out the red book and opened the front cover. "You'll appreciate this one day. Love, Daddy." Was scrawled in his loopy, illegible hand writing. He opened to a random, yellowed page and noted the pencil marks highlighting certain words. _Me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable, and the oppressive. Each is all three._ He read with a smile. Charlotte had marked several on that page. _Mendacious, adj. Addicted to rhetoric._

"You were right." Charlotte said from the doorway and he slammed the book shut and looked at her wordlessly. "I did learn to appreciate it." She walked into the room and took the book from his hand. "Those years you weren't there, all I had to do was look in this book to see what you might say. I could hear you saying along with Bierce, "Once is enough. Twice is once too often"." She gave a throaty laugh "Truth is an ingenious compound of desirability and appearance."

"Now you just have a short ride in an elevator to ask my opinion of things." He said as she put the book back on the bookshelf.

"Maybe I've grown rather attached to the book." She said with a shrug and looked directly at House "What can I do you out of, Dr. House?"

"I wanted to come and talk about a patient. Marvin Miller?" He looked around for somewhere to sit. He pushed aside a stack of journals and files on the couch and sat down.

"He's your patient now?" Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

"Cameron thought I'd enjoy the case." He shrugged and stretched out his feet onto the coffee table "I guess I've turned into a charity case in my old age."

"So what's wrong with Marvin?" She asked, ignoring the old age comment. He was fishing.

"I have several theories." He tried another tactic. "I might have to work through the weekend. Rain check for Saturday?" Success.

Charlotte looked at him and a brief moment of panic flashed through her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came, but House had caught it. She had something planned.

"Can't you have Dr. Cameron keep an eye on him? Maybe Dr. Chase or Dr. Foreman? You've got a whole team! What about them?" Charlotte said quickly and House eyed her suspiciously. No surprise party, she was offering the non-guests up as collateral. Or there was a surprise party and she was trying to hide that fact by offering up the guests as collateral.

"I used to work through my birthday all the time and you've never cared before."

"Yeah, but I've missed ten years of birthdays! I love birthdays!" She tried to convince him "And ever since I moved, we don't really see each other outside of work. It would be nice to just have a quiet evening with you. Daddy/Daughter Drinking Night!"

"Where we talk about our hopes and dreams and your newest crush?" He said sarcastically

"No, where we get piss ass drunk and make fun of everyone at the bar."

He paused and scratched his chin. "That does sound like fun."

*

Charlotte had picked up House at 6 as promised. When they exited his building, he stopped at looked at the new, black Mercury Mariner Hybrid sitting there waiting for them.

"You didn't have to buy me a new car…" House looked at Charlotte with a small smirk.

"I didn't." She said as she practically skipped to the drivers side. "I bought it this morning. Ta da!" She stopped by the hood and did her best Vanna White.

"I didn't know you were buying a new car." House said grudgingly as he opened the passenger side door "I would have gone with you."

"I didn't think you'd want to go." Charlotte slid in to the driver's seat and started the engine.

"Isn't that what dads do? Take their daughters to buy their first new car? Celebrate the fact that she is no longer driving a hand-me-down piece of crap?"

"Why? So I wouldn't be gypped by the mean old salesmen?" Charlotte rolled her eyes

"You're right." House sighed with relief. "I can't see anyone taking advantage of you."

"I got a good deal." She said reassuringly as House started playing with the radio.

"So this band that we're going to hear. They better be good." He had flipped on the heated seats and smiled as they started working

"They are. They're this jazz, bluegrass, classic rock fusion." She told him "It's seriously the craziest, most amazing sound you've ever heard. Plus, this place has a great bar."

"Good." House nodded his head and settled into the warm seat "So far, you've done good, kid."

*

Charlotte hadn't lied. They sat at the bar, nursing their drinks and enjoying the band, which was surprisingly the craziest and most amazing sound House had ever heard. In between sets, one of the guys from the band, Alex, came over and sat and talked with Charlotte and House. Charlotte had gotten to know him while he and his bandmates were attending NYU. Overall, House has enjoying his evening with Charlotte. It had been as she promised, they sat there drinking, laughing and making fun of the other people in the bar.

After a little while, Charlotte started compulsively checking her phone and occasionally texting. House thought about questioning her about it, but he held his tongue. He had been picked up and walked in the bar without incidence, so he figured he was safe for the rest of the evening. He had decided she was up to something when they first walked in the door and at this point, he'd had enough scotch that it didn't matter what it was. For the first time in a while, he wasn't wallowing in self-pity, he was simply enjoying the moment for what it was.

"Hey," Alex came up behind them after the latest set "So a table just opened up in the main room and I threw my jacket on it to save it for you guys. It's a great seat."

"Thanks, Alex!" Charlotte smiled and looked at House "Do you wanna head over to the main room? I mean, we can actually watch them instead of just listening."

"Sure." House said nonchalantly as he threw back the rest of his drink. He then slid off the bar stool and grabbed his cane. He and Alex waited as Charlotte got her credit card back from the bartender and signed the receipt. They followed Alex across the floor and entered the room where the band was playing. He stood in the threshold waiting for Alex to point out the table and looked around. The bar was a lot bigger than he thought it was when he first came in. To his right was a small stage loaded with equipment and instruments and to the left were several tables, all filled with people. In the back corner, he recognized a sea of bright, smiling faces.

"Happy birthday!" Everyone at the table stood up and cheered. House looked over his shoulder at Charlotte who was beaming widely.

"I hate you." House muttered to her as she stood on tip toe to kiss his cheek

"They just wanted an excuse to go out and drink." She reassured him as they made their way over to the table where Wilson, Cuddy, Foreman, Chase, Cameron, Kutner, Taub, Thirteen and a few other people Charlotte had found that actually still liked House were now standing.

House stood there awkwardly, accepting the congratulations on reaching 50 and greeting the guests at his surprise party. He looked over at Charlotte who was laughing with Wilson and Cuddy as she slipped into a chair next to Chase. _She really cares._ He thought to himself.

He accepted the drink Foreman handed to him and smiled when Charlotte looked at him nervously. He wasn't going to let her know that he was extremely uncomfortable with all the attention on him. She didn't need to know he would have preferred and evening at a strip club. She needed to do this and deep down, he felt he might actually enjoy the evening.

*

Charlotte had excused herself to use the restroom, but she doubled back and made her way to the stage. The band waved her up and she pulled out a stool onto center stage and sat down. She was given a guitar and a microphone was placed in front of her.

"Hi," She said once the microphone was adjusted "Um, my name is Charlotte Carrington-House and I'm with that rowdy bunch of doctors in the back of the room." She pointed to the back table where everyone was cheering at the unexpected surprise. "Today is my dad's 50th birthday and in honor of him, I'm going to treat you to a song that always reminded me of him." She quickly ran her fingers over the strings to test the guitar. She looked up at House, who was hiding in the corner but beaming at her. "If you have a problem with the way I play guitar, take your complaints to the old man with the cane. Beware: he can be ornery."

Charlotte smiled softly and started singing in a clear, folksy voice:

_Folk always told me that my heart would grow  
The older the man, yeah, the stronger the stone  
Am I losing my mind?  
Am I growing backwards with time?_

_Some say with age that a purpose comes clear  
I see the opposite happening here  
Are we losing the fight?  
Are we growing backwards with time?_

_I was young and love was fun  
Now it's so serious  
Now all the fun has equal pain  
There's something wrong with this  
For all I know there's more I don't  
Oh the little I have learned  
For every year of knowledge gained  
Is a negative year I've earned_

_Folk always told me that my heart would grow  
The older the man, yeah, the stronger the stone  
Am I losing my mind?_

Charlotte smiled as she handed the guitar back to Alex. She jumped off the stage and wove her way through the maze of tables and smiled in thanks at the occasional praise from other patrons.

When she reached her seat at the table, House beckoned her over. She made her way around the table and knelt by his chair. When she looked up at his face, his eyes seemed to be overflowing with tenderness, but his mouth kept it's hard line. After a moment of looking into Charlotte's eyes, he awkwardly put his hand on her shoulder and she responded by resting a hand on his knee.

House couldn't find the words to express what he was feeling at that moment. He could have said, "I'm proud of you." But that didn't cover the warm fuzzy feeling in the bottom of his stomach. Relief. No, he wasn't relieved. While the evening had been less embarrassing than he thought it would be, he still felt awkward about the entire situation. Admiration? Yes, he did admire his daughter, but that wasn't enough either. He thought about criticizing her choice of song, but that wasn't his first reaction: he loved it. He loved it.

"I love you." He said softly with a smile "I don't tell you that enough."

"You don't have to, Daddy." She matched his tone and tenderness

"I'm lucky to have you."

"I know." She said with a wry smile. "Happy birthday." She gave him a warm hug and walked back around to her end of the table and slid into her seat next to Chase

"That was awesome, C.H." Chase said with a wink.

"Yeah," Cameron said from the other side of the table. She had witnessed the scene between House and Charlotte and saw something she had never seen before: House genuinely happy. "That was actually really good."

"You sound surprised." Foreman laughed

From across the table, there was a clinking glass and Cuddy was nudging House to stand up. Slowly, he stood up with his drink in hand and he cleared his throat.

"I don't do this often so enjoy it." He held his glass up and took a deep breath. "I'd like to make a toast to friends," He looked around the table and his co-workers then looked at Charlotte, "And family. Without you, I wouldn't be the kind, charming young man you see before you today." He paused and added almost painfully, "Thank you. To family and to friends."

He sat back down and the table echoed his toast. Cuddy leaned forward in her seat so that the whole table could see her and cleared her throat.

"I wanted to say something as well." She looked around to make sure she had every one's attention. "We've all had our differences with House, some more than others." She said with a knowing smile "But I wanted to share a story with you that he'd probably kill me for sharing." She looked over her shoulder and grinned, "It's actually more about Charlotte, so you're in the clear. When Charlotte was 10 or so, her mom took her to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia to teach her about the Revolution and whatnot. They spent a day at the nearby amusement park and there was a ride named the Loch Ness Monster. When Charlotte got home, she called House and wouldn't stop talking about the Loch Ness Monster." She winked at Charlotte "She wanted to know if it really existed. The next summer, House took her to Scotland. They spent about two weeks traveling around on a train and searching for clues to the Loch Ness Monster mystery."

"Much to my dismay, we didn't find anything." Charlotte interjected quickly with a laugh "Mom was so mad at you for taking me."

"I think that trip has been how I've seen House as a doctor for the last twenty some-odd years. If there's a question, he's going to go out and find it regardless of what the mother of an underage child thinks. He will spend two weeks on a train with a ten year-old to make sure that everyone has their answer. Even if it is the craziest idea in the world, House will get the answer."

"I knew the answer." House pointed out

"But I didn't. And you weren't going to tell me I was wrong until I figured it out for myself." Charlotte said with a smile towards House "And the time I was convinced Chinese food was made from cats…"

"You didn't go to China." Wilson teased and House nodded.

"I made her ask the owners of a restaurant, in Mandarin, if they used cat in any of their dishes." He leaned back in his chair and gave a half-smile. "What she ended up asking was nowhere near what she meant to ask and we got kicked out."

House's last comment spurred laughter and little conversations around the table and Foreman turned to Charlotte with a seriously look in his eye.

"What's it really like?" He twirled his drink in his hand "Being House's daughter."

"Have you ever been lectured to?" Charlotte pursed her lips as Foreman nodded. She continued, "I mean by House. Has he ever sat you down and gotten that intense look in his eye where you think you see him beginning to doubt you but his words are encouraging? As if it is some odd talent, as he rips you down he's saying that he believes in you. He doesn't have to say it, but you know he implicitly trusts you." Foreman nodded in understanding. "After years of it, you can't figure out whether you love him or hate him for it. He doesn't ask anything utterly outrageous of you, but you still have to choose which one it is." She shrugged and looked over at House as he was laughing with Wilson and Cuddy and said with a smile, "I chose to love him."

_fin._


End file.
